
OassJ- i-^^-i— 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE 



SPANISH CONSPmACY. 



A REVIEAV OF 



EARLY SPANISH MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTH-WEST. 



CONTAINING 



PROOFS OF THE INTRIGUES OF JAMES WILKINSON AND JOHN BROWN; 
OF THE COMPLICITY THEREWITH OF JUDGES SEBASTIAN, WALLACE, 
AND INNES; THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF KENTUCKY FOR AUTON- 
OMY; THE INTRIGUES OF SEBASTIAN IN 1795-7, AND THE 
LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATION OF HIS CORRUPTION. 



BY 1^^ 

THOMAS MARSHALL GREElsT, 

Author of " Historic Families of Kentucky." 




CINCINNATI: 
ROBERT CLARKE & CO, 

1891. 



.GvS' 
CoPH i 



Copyright, 1891, 
By THOMAS MARSHALL GREEN. 



PREFATORY. 



In his valuable work on the "Cession of Louisiana," published 
in the first years of this century, Allen B. Magruder stated : " To 
whiytever incomprehensible spirit of delirium the circumstances 
may have attributed its origin, yet it is a fact, that about the year 
1789, or 1790, a plan was in agitation to separate Kentucky from 
the Union and attach it to the Spanish government of Louisiana, 
A memorial was drawn up addressed to the executive authority of 
the colony expressing the advantage of a union, which was recipro- 
cated in the same terms on the part of the Simnish governor. The 
chimerical plan proceeded so far in its effects upon the public 
mind, that a proposition to form the state into an independent gov- 
ernment was introduced into a convention held about that time 
to form articles of separation from the State of Virginia." The 
author of the book in which this statement was made was at the 
time a resident of Lexington, Ky. He was a staunch Republican 
and an intimate political and personal associate of the men to 
whom the movement in question was attributed ; and, writing soon 
after its occurrence, his opportunities for correctly ascertaining the 
facts from the men who were fully acquainted therewith were most 
ample. 

A few years after this publication was made by Magruder, an 
exposure of the plan to which he had referred was made, in 1806, 
in the columns of the "Tlie Western World," a newspaper published 

(iii) 



iv Prefatory. 

at Frankfort, Ky. As an effect of that exposure, John Brown, 
one of the principals engaged in the plan, deemed it expedient at 
the early age of forty-eight to retire forever from public life, and, 
as far as possible, to withdraw himself from public observation ; 
while Sebastian, his friend and one of his coadjutors, was driven 
in merited disgrace from the bench of the Court of Appeals. The 
legislative investigation which was forced by that exposure, and 
the results of the judicial inquiries which he had himself invoked, 
left the unhappy Innes, another of John Brown's associates in the 
plan, nothing of which to boast and every thing to most bitterly 
lament. And, though a " Scotch verdict" of acquittal was given 
to James Wilkinson, the prime mover and leader in the plan, by 
the coiirt-martial which was organized for the purpose, yet his own 
letters, since obtained from the Spanish archives, establish the 
indubitable truth of the charges made against him, and no one 
now questions his guilt. 

At a later day, but during the lives of these men, not only were 
the charges as to their participation in this j^lan distinctly formu- 
lated, but the evidence to sustain them was stated in detail and 
passed into history. The historians who afterward wrote upon the 
subject accepted and reproduced that statement as a correct repre- 
sentation of the facts. Butler, who wrote in defense of these men 
in 1834, and who had had the fullest opportunity for obtaining every 
fact within their possession which in the slightest degree contradicted 
the allegations under which they had suffered ; — even Butler was 
obliged to confess, "that Mr. Brown, and in all probability many 
other of the ancient statesmen of Kentucky, did incline to discuss, 
if not adopt, a connexion with Spain, independent of the feeble and 
disgraced union, which then existed ;" and to protest that the sug- 
gestion, that the letters of Brown which communicated the over- 
ture that had been made to him by Gardoqui, had no " meaning " 



Prefatory. v 

other than to " forwar(J information," was " unworthy of the grave 
subject of communication," and of the " dignity of the correspond- 
ents;" and was " inconsistent with the only manly and triumphant 
justification of which," the zealous champion of treason thought, 
" the measure may have been susceptible." The historians being thus 
substantially agreed upon the facts, differed only as to the degree of 
turpitude they involved. Had the question been permitted to re- 
main one as to whether the sly plotting of treason was reprehensi- 
ble or commendable, there had been no necessity of now recurring 
to the subject. 

But, more than a century after the events had occurred, 
half a century after the last of those who participated in the con- 
troversy and the scenes to which it had related had been buried ; 
— and after many years of patient labor expended in devising 
ways by which facts could be so suppressed, and misstatements of 
other facts could be so invented ^nd systematized, as to make his 
ancestor's conduct appear to be not only blameless, but actually 
patriotic, the late Colonel John Mason Brown succeeded in accom- 
plishiug that result in a manner satisfactory to himself, in the 
preparation, reading, and placing in the hands of the printer of a 
paper entitled "T/ie Political Beginnings, of Kentucky.'" This paper 
was not published until some months after its author's death. In 
its efforts to conceal John Brown's guilt, it flatly contradicts state- 
ments which were made on John Brown's own authority. Protest- 
ing that Butler, who endeavored to apologize for John Brown, had 
blindly accepted, and without an examination reproduced state- 
ments to his grievous injury, which had emanated in malice, the 
author of " The Political Beginnings" asserts, that the " so-called 
Spanish Conspiracy, gloomily imagined as concocted with Gardoqui, 
was but a figment of an incensed political adversary's brain ; a 
suspicion unsupported by a particle of testimony, unvouched for by 



vi Prefatory. 

documeut, unestablished by deposition, and refuted by every proof." 
The book claims to produce evideuce discovered by its author, 
which furnishes, as it alleges, the complete vindication of John 
Brown; — a vindication, it may be remarked, which the prudent 
Brown never sought for himself, which no one else was ever able to 
offer for him, but which, if it were possible that he were really in- 
nocent, it must be admitted his memory for more tlian fifty years 
has most sorely needed. The author thus reopens the entire sub- 
ject, boldly challenges the world to weigh tlie alleged evidence, to 
pronounce upon its sufficiency, and to criticise the integrity of its 
presentation. 

The writer had taken great interest in that remarkable epoch in 
the history of his native state. His acquaintance with the facts 
was, however, but limited. He wished to ascertain hi)w far the 
astonishing statements which are made in "The Political Begin- 
nings," and which had arrested" his attention, were sustained by 
the testimony cited ; whether it were possible that all others had 
been in error, and that Colonel Brown alone had unearthed the facts. 
He therefore entered upon an investigation of the facts connected 
witb that singular episode in our history ;— upon the inquiry to wliich 
the whole world had been invited and summoned with such blare 
of trumpets. The results of that inquiry are now placed before 
the public. 

In these pages are produced, in their logical connection and 
relation to each other, the proofs known to the writer, which show 
that, while Kentucky was yet a district of Virginia, an engage- 
ment was entered into by James Wilkinson with Miro, the Intend- 
aut of Louisiana, to separate Kentucky from the United States, 
and to subject her people to Spain; that, as a result of this in- 
trigue between Wilkinson and Miro, a proposition was, a few 
months thereafter, made by Gardoqui, the Spanish Minister to the 



Prefatory. vii 

United States, to John Brown, then a member of the Old Con- 
gress from Virginia, to grant to the people of Kentucky the privi- 
lege of navigating the Mississippi, which Spain refused to the peo- 
ple of the United States, on condition that the people of Kentucky 
would first erect themselves into an independent state and with- 
draw from the Union ; that John Brown, assenting to the propo- 
sition made to him by the representative of the government of 
Torquemada, promised to aid the design ; that, in accordance with 
the engagement made by the one and the assurance given by the 
other, Wilkinson and Brown, on their return to Kentucky, con- 
spired with each other, and with Benjamin Sebastian, Harry Innes, 
Caleb Wallace, Isaac Dunn, and others, to accomplish the separa- 
tion which had been concerted with the Spaniards, did all that< 
they dared do to bring it about, and that their movements in 
the Danville Conventions of July and November, 1788, which 
were so happily frustrated, were agreed upon, and directed to that 
end. It will be shown that in this movement, its leader, Wilkin- 
son, was not actuated by a desire to promote the growth of the 
West by obtaining for the people the freedom of the navigation of 
the Mississippi. On the contrary, it will be shown that the motives 
for his treason were at once wholly mercenary, selfish, and per- 
fidious ; that, while he bargained for the exclusive privilege of trade 
with New Orleans for himself and his associates, he urged upon 
the Spanish authorities that the rigid occlusion of the Mississippi as 
against all others, was the sole means by which the people of Ken- 
tucky could be tempted or driven to a separation from the United 
States, that they might thereby obtain, through an alliance with 
Spain, a right which that power denied to them while they re- 
mained a part of the United States. 

Corroborative of the direct proofs adduced are the suppressions, 
evasions, and falsifications, of the facts resorted to by these men in 



viii Prefatory. 

their own defense, which they procured to be written, paid for, pub- 
lished, and circulated, and vouched for to the public to whose sym- 
pathies they aj^pealed, and whom they attempted to deceive. In 
treating those tergiversations it is assumed that innocence does not 
need, and never resorts to, fraud and falsehood for its vindication ; 
and that, if positive evidence were as wanting as in this case it is 
abundant, among the most indubitable manifestations of conscious 
guilt are the subterfuges, concealments, prevarications, and delib- 
erate departures from truth behind which that guilt ever seeks a 
refuge. If these propositions be true, as their natural consequence 
it folloAvs, as surely as the night succeeds the day, that the author 
who, in the advocacy of any cause or in the defense of any man, 
systematically conceals material facts, suppresses important testi- 
mony which conflicts with his own positions, and deliberately makes 
statements which the very evidence he cites disproves — not in one 
or two instances only, but from his initial to his concluding chap- 
ter, — thereby discloses his own seuse of the wrongful nature of that 
cause, and makes manifest his own knowledge or conviction of the 
guilt of the man whose cause he had espoused. 

Without further explanations, the writer now confidently sub- 
mits the facts and the evidence to the calm and unbiased scrutiny, 
and to the just and inexorable judgment, of all men who take an 
interest in the early history of our common country, who value 
honor in our public servants, and who insist that due respect shall 
be paid to historic truth. 

Maysville, Ky., March 2, 1891. 



THE SPANISH CONSPIRACY. 



CHAPTER T. 



The Treaty of 1763 — The Cession of Louisiana to Spain — The Ef- 
forts OF Spain to Extend Her Boundaries to the Allegha- 
NiES— The Connivance of France — The Design Defeated by 
Jay — Mr. Jay's Proposition. 

The peace of 1763, which followed the triumph of Brit- 
ish arms over the allied forces of French and Indians, 
secured to the Court of St. James the territorial sover- 
eignty of all the country east of the Mississippi to which 
France had previously asserted the right of dominion. 
But prior to the signing of the definitive treaty with Great 
Britain, and contemporaneously with signing the prelim- 
inary articles of agreement with that power, on the 3d 
of November, 1762, France, apprehending that her terri- 
tory of Louisiana might fall into the hands of Great 
Britain, had, by a secret treaty, made a free gift of all that 
splendid domain to Spain. The apparent generosity of 
this voluntary cession of the magnificent territory west 
of the Mississippi was somewhat diminished by the fact, 
that it had steadily proved a burden and expense rather 
than a benefit or source of revenue to the French king ; 
and Spain was by no means greedy for the prize thus ten- 
dered as a proof of friendship and confidence and to con- 
ciliate her good will. However, the gift was finally ac- 
cepted by his Catholic majesty, not for its own intrinsic 
value so much as with the expectation that Louisiana 
would interpose a barrier between the British dominions 
and his own more valued provinces of Texas and Mexico. 
Spain did not formally take possession of this fair and 
imperial domain until 1769, when, with great pomp and 

(9) 



10 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

parade, General O'Reilly made his entrance into the then 
sleepy village of New Orleans. 

Tlie definitive treaty of Paris, which restored peace be- 
tween Great Britain and her colonies und France and 
Spain, was signed on the 10th of Februar3% 1763. By its 
provisions France surrendered and ceded to Great Britain 
not only her chiims to the country south of the lakes and 
east of the Mississippi, but also Canada, Nova Scotia, the 
island of Cape Breton, and all the other islands and coasts 
in the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. The seventh article 
of that treaty, out of which, and its alleged conflict with 
the previous secret gift of Louisiana to Spain, grew many of 
the difficulties which accompanied subsequent negotiations 
between the United States and Spain, was as follows, viz : 

Article 7. " In order to establish peace on solid and durable 
foundations, and to remove forever all subjects of dispute with re- 
gard to the limits of the British and French territories on the con- 
tinent of America, it is agreed that for the future, the confines 
between the dominions of his Britannic Majesty and those of his 
most Christian Majesty in that part of the world, shall be fixed ir- 
revocably by a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi 
river, from its source to the river Iberville, and from thence by a 
line drawn along the middle of this river, and the lakes Maurepas 
and Poutchartrain, to the sea; and for this purpose, tlie most 
Christian king cedes, in full right, and guarantees to his Britannic 
Majesty, the river and port of Mobile, and every thing which he 
possesses or ought to pos^3ess on the left side of the river Mississippi, 
with the exception of the town of New Orleans, and of the island 
in which it is situated, which shall remain to France; it being loell 
understood that tlie navigation of the river 3Iiiisif'si2')pi shall be equally 
free, as well to the subjects of Great Britain as to those of France, in its 
whole length and breadth from its source to the sea ; and expressly, that 
part which is between the said island of New Orleans, and the right bank 
of that river, as well as the passage both in and out of its mouth. It is 
further stipulated that the vessels belonging to the subjects of either nation 
shall not be stopped, visited, or subjected to the payment of any duty 
whatever.'" 

As by the cession of all the territory owned by France 
on the east of the Mississippi, Great Britain had thus be- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 11 

come possessed of the left bank of that river from its 
source to its mouth, the express provision in regard to its 
navigation conveyed only a right which would necessarily 
have accompanied the territory ceded, according to all the 
laws of nations. It will be understood that the prior grant 
of Louisiana to Spain was as yet a secret and had not been 
accepted. The rights reserved to France were those which 
had been already given to Spain, which afterward took the 
place of France in the dominion over Louisiana. 

Spanish authority over Louisiana had been scarcely as- 
sumed by O'Reilly, in 1769, when, owing to an increase of 
population by reason of the regiments which came with 
him, a dearth of provisions in New Orleans became so ex- 
cessive that flour rose to $20 per barrel. In the midst of 
the general distress a Philadelphian, named Oliver Pol- 
lock, arrived from Baltimore with a brig laden with flour, 
which he offered to O'Reilly on his own terms. Declining 
to accept this generous offer, the Spanish governor finally 
purchased the cargo at $15 per barrel ; and a promise was 
made to Pollock that he should have free trade to Lou- 
isiana so long as he lived, and that a report of his conduct 
should be made to the king.* In 1776, this same Oliver 
Pollock was in IsTeW Orleans, with other merchants from 
Philadelphia, Ncav York, and Boston, and by their exer- 
tions and enterprise was procured the abundant supply of 
ammunition, which was delivered to Colonel John Gibson, 
and was conveyed by him to Pittsburg for the use of the 
Americans. It was a part of this powder which George 
Rogers Clark obtained from Virginia in the fall of that 
year and shipped to Cabin Creek, for the use of the Ken- 



* Martin's History of Louisiana, page 210. Concerning this gentleman, 
General Wilkinson wrote (in the second volume of his Memoirs, page 
150): "It is notorious to every ancient inhabitant of Louisiana, that 
Mr. Pollock's connection with the Spanish officers, at New Orleans, was 
the most intimate, and his influence boundless fro7n the administration 
of General O'Reilly to that of Governor Miro, from the year 1769 to 1790." 
AVhile Wilkinson exaggerated this intimacy and influence, in order to 
magnify the importance of Pollock's testimony that he had no informa- 
tion of Wilkinson's pension from the Spaniards, yet it is certain the one 
was unusual and the other great. 



12 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tuckians. Spain, like France, being inimical to Great 
Britain, and desiring the separation of her colonies from 
her, Galvez, then the Spanish governor, connived at the 
sale of ammunition to Pollock and his associates, though 
his government was ostensibly at peace with King George.* 
The next year several large boats came from Pittsburg to 
New Orleans, and returned laden with munitions, which 
Pollock had collected at the latter place. f An active cor- 
respondence was maintained between Galvez and Colonel 
George Morgan, who was in command at Fort Pitt, who 
meditated a descent to l^ew Orleans, and who contem- 
plated an attack from that point on Mobile and Pensacola ; 
but this was discouraged by Galvez, who had his eye on 
the Floridas as a part of the futui-e spoil of Spain, and had 
no purpose to permit them to be taken by the Americans. 
In 1778, Pollock openly assumed the character of agent 
for the United States at New Orleans ; and, the court of 
Madrid having become less timid in its manifestations of 
hostility to Great Britain, Galvez gave assistance to the 
Americans, in arms, ammunition, provisions, etc., to the 
amount of $70,000, — all of which, with large quantities 
bought by his own means, was sent by Pollock to the in- 
habitants of Western Pennsylvania, of Kentucky, of the 
Watauga, and to the posts captured from the British on 
the Mississippi. From New Orleans, and largely from 
Pollock, came the supplies which enabled Clark to cap- 
ture Vincennes and Kaskaskia.J Thence was equipped 
the predatory foray of Captain Willing on the British set- 
tlers of Natchez. In a word, every important military 
movement in the west was aided from New Orleans, Oliver 
Pollock being, in nearly every case, one of the leading 
factors by whom the supplies were furnished. Thus was 
the attention of the scattered settlers west of the mount- 
ains early drawn to the vast importance to them of the 
system of mighty rivers which emptied their waters into 



*Gaj'arre, Spanish Domination, i)age 100. 
tibid. 109. 
ilbid. 112,113. 



The Sj)anish Conspiracy. ' 13 

the gulf; and while the traders at Pittsburg ascertained 
that their easiest and cheapest route for freights to and 
from Philadelphia was by way of Kew Orleans, the inhab- 
itants of the entire west were made to feel that their nat- 
ural outlet to the markets of the world was through the 
mouths of the Mississippi. 

The Treaty of 1763 had constituted the Mississippi as 
the western boundary of North Carolina. But, by pro- 
clamation bearing date the 7th of October, 1763, King 
George had prohibited the granting of " warrants of 
survey," or the " passing of patents," or the settlement of 
" any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the 
rivers which fall into the Atlantic ocean from the west or 
northwest ; " — a measure deemed necessary for quieting 
the fears and jealousies of the red men, and which did 
much toward destroying the combinations of Pontiac. 
A compliance with this mandate would have prevented the 
extension of the frontier settlements west of the mount- 
ains of ITorth Carolina ; but, in defiance of the prohibi- 
tion, a considerable number of the hardy and restless 
woodsmen and pioneers of that province, had early estab- 
lished themselves upon the banks of the Watauga, one of 
the tributaries of the Holston, where they were quickly 
joined by adventurous spirits from Virginia, Maryland 
and Pennsylvania. Their numbers had so rapidly in- 
creased that, in 1776, their claim to representation in the 
convention which framed the constitution for the " state " 
of ]S^orth Carolina was admitted ; and their aggressive dis- 
position had so extended the area of their occupation 
that, in 1777, they were formed into a county of North 
Carolina, which had the Mississippi as its western bound- 
ary ; thus early planting the flag upon and carrying the 
dominion and laws of the United States to the banks of 
that mighty stream. 

The recognition by France of the independence of 
and conclusion of a treaty of alliance and commerce with 
the United States, was answered by an immediate declara- 
tion of war against France by Great Britain. To the 
treaty between France and the United States was annexed 



14 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

a secret article, reserving to Spain the right of acceding 
thereto, and of participating in its stipulations whenever 
she might think proper. The offered mediation by Spain 
having been rejected by the Court of St. James, his Cath- 
olic majesty, uniting w^ith his kinsman of France in the 
struggle, on the 8th of May, 1779, published his formal 
declaration of war against Great Britain. The Spanish 
expeditions against Fort Manchac, Baton Rouge and 
Natchez were accompanied by Oliver Pollock, as the agent 
of the American Congress. The Floridas having remained 
faithful to Great Britain, the Spanish arms were soon di- 
rected against Mobile and Pensacola, which fell into their 
hands. Witnessing with the most lively satisfaction the 
rupture between Spain and Great Britain, Congress 
deemed it advisable to invite his Catholic majesty^ to avail 
himself of the secret provision in their treaty with France, 
and for this purpose resolved to send a minister plenipo- 
tentiary to Madrid ; and, on the 27th of September, 1779, 
selected John Jay, then the able Chief Justice of ]S"ew 
York, for that most important mission. To this distin- 
guished gentleman it had been frequently intimated by 
M. Gerard, the French minister at Philadelphia, prior to 
the embarcation in the war by Spain, that an indispen- 
sable prerequisite to a treaty with his Catholic majesty 
would be a quitting of the Floridas and of the Mississippi 
to him ; but when Mr. Jay accepted the mission to Madrid, 
he had become fully " persuaded that we ought not to cede 
to her (Spain) any of our rights, and of course that we 
should retain and insist upon our right to the navigation 
of the Mississippi." * 

On the fourth day after his arrival in Cadiz, in the 
Spring of 1780, Mr. Jay sent his secretary to Madrid, with 
a letter to the Spanish minister for foreign affairs, ac- 
quainting him with the commission with which he was 
charged. The answer invited Mr. Jay to Madrid, but 
plainly intimated that he was not expected to assume a 



Life of John Jay, p. 101. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 15 

formal character, which must depend on future acknowl- 
edgment and treaty ; — thus giving him to understand, at 
the very outset, that an acknowledgment of American 
independence by Spain would, on her part, be made a 
matter of bargain, and that she expected to be paid for 
admitting a fact, however indisputable ; — and it was 
equally apparent to him that whatever designs were enter- 
tained by Spain were not only countenanced, but, in some 
instances, were even prompted by the French ambassador 
at Madrid. He was also soon given to understand that the 
claims of the United States to the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi prevented Spain from forming a treaty with them, 
and, besides, Spain had pretensions as to territory to 
which the patriotic American would not yield. In sub- 
stance, the servants of the Catholic King said to the Am- 
erican minister, whom they refused to recognize: The 
price of our acknowledgment of your independence, and 
of our forming a treaty of alliance and commerce with 
you, is, a subscription on your part to the exclusive right 
of Spain to the navigation of the Mississippi ; your con- 
sent to our taking possession of both the Floridas, and to 
all the country extending from the left bank of the Mis- 
sissippi to the back settlements of the former British pro- 
vinces, according to the proclamation of King George ot 
1763 ; and that you will prohibit your citizens from con- 
quering or settling in any of the British territory to which 
we refer. The plans of Spain were not at all concealed, 
and as little pains were taken to disguise the connivance 
in them by France, whose minister at Philadelphia was in- 
structed to and did communicate them to Congress, in 
terms that sound more like an order than mere advice 
that they be accepted. Mr. Jay declining to accede to 
those conditions, Spain refused to render the financial aid 
to the United States which had been solicited. During 
the year 1780, he labored in vain to induce the Spanish 
Court to enter into negotiations for a treaty. At first, 
Congress was also firm. But, wearied with the struggle, 
in February, 1781, the Virginia delegates in Congress in- 
troduced a resolution, which was voted for by all the 



16 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

soutliern states, with the exception of N'orth Carolina, 
and which passed Congress, instructing him no longer to 
insist upon the navigation of the Mississippi below our 
southern boundary, if it should be found necessary to 
make that concession to obtain a recognition of our inde- 
pendence, and if, by making it, that recognition could be 
obtained. In the meantime, however, in the spring of 
1780, — under the instructions of Gov. Jefferson, — a fort 
named in his honor had been established by George R. 
Clark, below the mouth of the Ohio, upon the Missis- 
sippi. And, on the 2nd of January, 1781, Don Eugenio 
Bierre, at the head of sixty-five Spaniards, set out from 
St. Louis to capture the little mission of St. Joseph on 
Lake Michigan, where he found a few British traders. 
That the place was at once abandoned by the Spaniards, 
who retraced their steps to St. Louis, and that afterwards 
Spain founded on this capture a claim for territorial do- 
minion in the north-west, are evidences that this expedition 
was W'ithout military purpose, and that the enterprise was 
purely a legal one against the rights of the United States. 
Although privately advised of the new instructions 
adopted by Congress, the first official notification of the 
act, which was intensely mortifying to him, was received 
by Mr. Jay when, on the 11th of July, 1781, the Spanish 
secretary of state placed in his hands a letter from the 
president of Congress, announcing the altered resolution 
of that body. Uhder those instructions Mr. Jay, again 
urging the negotiation, presented the Spanish minister with 
the plan of a treaty. In this he had most reluctantly in- 
corporated an article relinquishing the right of the 
United States to the navigation of the Mississippi; but, 
with the courage for which he was remarkable, he made 
this conditional upon the immediate ratification of the 
treaty by Spain, and assumed the responsibility of accom- 
panying it by the declaration, that should the treaty not 
be concluded before a general peace, the United States 
were not to be bound by the ofi'erto surrender the naviga- 
tion. But, not content with this humiliating concession, 
Spain refused to enter upon a treaty on any basis other 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 17 

than one which, in addition to abandoning this right of 
navigation, and yielding to the Catholic king the posses- 
sion of both the Floridas, should also concede to his 
grasping demands all the territory extending from the left 
bank of the Mississippi to the back settlements of the 
former British provinces, according to the proclamation 
of 1763; and happily, as it turned out, no treaty could be 
effected by Mr. Jay, rior would the Spaniard even enter 
upon a negotiation. Thus, while the revolution was yet 
progressing, did Spain make it apparent that her partici- 
pation in the hostilities against Great Britain was solely 
in order to weaken and humiliate that rival power, for 
her own aggrandizement, and not from any sympathy 
with the cause of American liberty, which was inimical 
to her own institutions ; and thus early did she manifest 
her purpose to separate the west from the east. 

France, which was bound to Spain by compact as 
well as by the close relationship and similar faiths of their 
rulers, united with that power in all her efforts to bring 
the independence of the United States under their protec- 
tion; and to limit our boundaries to the Alleghanies, or at 
the most by the Ohio river. The separation of the Amer- 
ican colonies from Great Britain tending to further the 
objects of France, she labored earnestly and zealously to 
accomplish that result, and was restricted by her own in- 
clinations and interests not less than by compact from 
agreeing to any terms of peace until the independence of 
the United States was secured. But, as the United States 
might possibly prefer claims beyond their independence, 
which Great Britain might be unwilling to concede, it be- 
came important to France to have the power of controlling 
the negotiation of the American claims ; — so as to avoid, 
on the one hand, a breach of her obligations to the United 
States, and, on the other hand, a prolongation of the war for 
objects in which she had no interest. And, beyond all this, 
France desired to render the ally in whose behalf she had 
gone into the war, subservient to her interests in the future; 
and she shrewdly calculated that the United States would 
2 



18 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

be more easily reduced to the position of a dependent sat- 
ellite of the house of Bourbon, and would be more readily 
controlled by its influence, if the establishment of their 
independence should be attended by the contraction of tlunr 
boundaries, by exclusion from the Gulf of Mexico, and 
from all participation in the fisheries, and by causes for 
permanent irritation with Great Britain, than if erected 
into a powerful empire and reconciled with the mother 
country by a treaty liberal and equitable in its provisions. 
As early as 1779, M. Gerard, the French Minister to tlie 
United States, hinted that the United States might And 
themselves in the j)Osition of the Swiss Cantons, which 
had failed to secure a recognition of their independence 
from their former sovereigns, but nevertheless enjoyed 
"their sovereignty and independence under the guaran- 
tee of France." In the same memorial to Congress, 
M. Gerard adverted to " the manifest necessity of enabling 
Spain, by the determination of just and moderate terms, to 
press upon England with her good offices, and to bring 
her mediation to an issue," which was a hint to Congress 
to recede from its ultimata as to the navigation of the 
Mississippi and a participation in the fisheries. Congress 
then remaining firm, and giving to Mr. Jay a qualified 
reference to the advice of their allies upon points not in- 
cluded in his instructions, the position of the United 
States was found not at all to comport with the views of 
France. Gerard was succeeded as minister to the United 
States by Count Luzerne, wlio, on the 25th of January, 
1780, requested a conference with Congress. The com- 
mittee appointed by Congress to receive his communi- 
cations, reported that the French minister had been 
instructed by his government to inform Congress of cer- 
tain points which were deemed of great importance by 
Spain, which had then taken part in the conflict, an(J 
upon which it was necessary that Congress should ex- 
plicitly explain themselves. These points were identical 
with those which had already been communicated to Mr. 
Jay at Madrid by the Spanish secretary of state, as ob- 
stacles to negotiation by his government with the United 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 19 

States. They amoLintecl to a demand for an agreement that 
the territory of the United States shoukl extend no fur- 
ther west than the settlements permitted by tlie procUima- 
tion of 1763 ; that the United States thus having no terri- 
tory upon the Mississippi, had no right to navigate that 
stream ; that Spain intended to conquer both the Fhjridas, 
and her possession of them must be acquiesced in ; that 
the territory on the east of the Mississippi belonged to 
Great Britain, and would probably be conquered by Spain, 
and the French minister advised Congress to restrain their 
people from conquests or settlements within the territory 
upon which Spain had turned her covetous eyes. Luzerne 
also communicated the information, which partook of the 
nature of a threat, that France did not regard the independ- 
ence of the United States as free from danger until they 
were united in amity with. Spain; — of c(jurse, by acceding 
to these iniquitous demands. It was this disingenuous in- 
terference by France in behalf of Spain which induced 
Congress to instruct Mr. Jay to abandon the right to navi- 
gate the Mississippi, as has been stated. Having suc- 
ceeded thus far, on the 26th of May, 1781,* Luzerne in- 
formed Congress that Russia and Germany liad offered 
their mediation for a peace, and requested Congress to 
appoint a committee to confer with him in reference to 
the manner of conducting the negotiation, the extent of 
the powers to be granted to the American plenipotentiary, 
the use to be made of those powers, and as to the confidence 
that ought to be reposed in the ministers of the French 
king. Assuredly France was disposed to push her advan- 
tage to the greatest length, but this insolent demand was 
acceded to. The count disapproved of the late nomina- 
tion of a minister to Russia by Congress ; complained that 
Mr. Adams, who was then in Europe with a commission 
for negotiating a treaty of peace, had assumed the right 
under it of treating with England, and requested Congress 
to instruct Mr. Adams " to receive his directions from the 
Count de Vergennes (the French secretary of state) or from 



Secret Journal of Congress. 



20 The Sjianish Conspiracy. 

the person who might be charged with the negotiation in the 
name of the king.'" Congress bad been to siicb an extent 
won over by Luzerne as to agree upon new instructions to 
Mr. Adams, in whicb be was directed to insist upon no 
otber ultimata in tbe treaty of peace tban tbat of inde- 
pendence ; and was instructed " to make the most candid 
and confidential communications upon all subjects to tbe 
ministers of our generous ally, tbe King of France, to 
undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce with- 
out their knowledge or concurrence." It was doubtless at tbe 
suggestion of Luzerne tbat tbe committee recommended 
tbat some person sbould be associated in tbe negotiation 
witb Adams, wbose sturdy independence was well calcu- 
lated to inspire apprebensions in tbose wbo masked tbeir 
designs by insincere professions. Tbe sacrifice of national 
dignity did not satisfy Luzerne, and Congress tben in- 
serted in- tbe instructions tbe following words, viz : " and 
ultimately to govern yourself by their (tbe ministers of tbe 
Frencb king) advice and opinion." Mr. Jay, Dr. Frank- 
lin, Mr. Jefterson and Laurens were tben associated witb 
Adams as ministers plenipotentiary to negotiate a peace. 
Wben Mr. Jay received at Madrid, in tbe fall of 1781, his 
commission as tbe associate of Mr. Adams, accompanied 
by these humiliating instructions to act as a mere puppet 
to be played with by the minister of a despotic king, and 
whicb, as well as the very appointment of Mr. Jay, were 
Anrtually dictated by Luzerne, bis mortification and cha- 
grin elicited from him a letter in which tbe degradation of 
tbe position assigned him was strongly depicted. Unac- 
knowledged as the minister of his country, and unable to 
negotiate with Spain except upon terms which insatiable 
greed strove to extort from tbe necessities of the republic, 
bis continued stay in Madrid held out to him no hope of 
usefulness ; and it must have been with, lively satisfaction 
tbat, in May, 1782, be received a letter from Dr. Franklin 
summoning him to Paris, to assist in negotiations for 
peace, which the latter expressed the opinion would soon 
be opened ; — a summons be obeyed witb bis accustomed 
alacrity. 



The Spanish Consjnracy. 21 

Having become master of the situation by the instruc- 
tions Congress had been prevailed on to give their com- 
missioners, France soon gave ominous hints of the sacri- 
fices which the United States were expected to make. 
Taking no measures to facilitate the efforts of Mr. Jay to 
form a treaty with Spain, and expressing .open disappro- 
bation of the efforts made by others to form alliances with 
other European powers, the design of the French court 
was plainly to render the United States solely dependent 
on her, and then to sacrifice our interests in order to keep 
us in that dependent condition. The recognition of our 
independence by Holland was obtained by Mr. Adams 
against the advice and wishes of the French ambassador 
at the Hague. On the 23d of ISTovember, 1781, Count 
Luzerne addressed a communication to Congress, vaguely 
intimating his apprehensions that he might not be able to 
" obtain for every state all they wished," which was a diplo- 
matic way of announcing the purpose of his court to 
strip the south and west of the navigation of the Mississippi, 
and ISTew Eugland of a participation in the fisheries. On 
the 28t.h of January, 1782, he communicated to Congress 
a letter from Vergennes, indicating that the United States 
were expected to accept terms which the French court 
might regard as " reasonable," and the indisposition of 
France "to continue hostilities mainly on account of 
America " in case terms deemed reasonable by France 
might not prove acceptable to the United States. * On 
the 24th of September, 1782, other letters from Vergennes 
were laid before Congress, in one of which the wily diplo- 
mat gave that body to understand the importance of '■'■ con- 
fining themselves within such bounds of moderation, as to give 
no umbrage to any one of the powers at vmr with Great 
Britain ; " the liberal translation of which was, that by 
surrendering to Spain the territory vv^est of the AUe- 
ghanies, and the navigation of the Mississippi, Congress 
should avoid giving umbrage to his Catholic majesty. 



Secret Journal of Congress. 



22 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

The discovery of their mistake in giving such instructions 
to their commissioners was not made by Congress until 
they were thus compelled to sue to a perfidious foreign 
prince for their rights. The flatteries of Vergennes had 
in the meantime so won over Dr. Franklin, that he was 
ready to make the concessions demanded. And this was 
the situation when Mr. Jay, who had fathomed the de- 
signs of France and Spain, arrived in Paris, in June, 1782. 
The negotiation for peace had not yet assumed any 
definite form. Mr. Jay on leaving Spain had been in- 
formed that Count Aranda would renew the negotiation 
with him in Paris, and to him the American commissioner, 
therefore, addressed a letter expressing his readiness for 
the necessary conferences. 

In the first of these conferences, in the presence of Ver- 
gennes, Count Aranda commenced with the subject of the 
western boundary of the United States, proposing to run 
a line east of the Mississippi, which should be the western 
boundar_y of the United States. While promptly claiming 
that river as the true boundary, Mr. Jay, with becoming 
dignity, refrained from discussing the point with Aranda, 
who had not given him a copy of his power to treat with 
the American commissioners.. The count gave iiim a map 
with the proposed line drawn upon it, which was shown 
to Vergennes, whose confidential secretary insisted that 
Jay's assertion of the right of the United States was not 
well founded. This secretarj^, acting at the instance of 
his master, afterwards addreesed to Mr. Jay a letter in 
which he proposed as a condlia.tory line, as the boundary of 
the United States, which would have deprived them not 
only of all the land north of the Ohio, but also of parts of 
Kentucky and Tennessee, and of nearly the whole of Ala- 
bama and Mississippi, which the secretary insisted be- 
longed to Great Britain and the possession of which must 
be determined by the treaty to be made. This letter, 
which was a contrivance of Vergennes to fix a boundary 
agreeable to Spain, without incurring the responsibility 
and odium of direct interference, Mr. Jay never answered. 
The object of Spain was to exclude the citizens of the 



llic Spanish Consinraey. 23 

United States from the Mississippi, and hence slie desired 
tlie honndary to he fixed hy a line east of that river, and 
this purpose was fully countenanced by France. Jay had 
given to Aranda a copy of his commission ; he declined 
to enter into any discussion with the Spaniard until the 
latter had conqdied with the same ceremonial; if Jay re- 
fused to treat there could be no cession of the Mississippi 
or of the proposed western boundary ; if Aranda tendered 
Jay his commission as ambassador, this would itself have 
been a recognition of the independence of the United 
States, which would have rendered them less dependent 
on France ; Jay's conduct thus interfered with the plans 
of Vergennes. So the convenient confidential secretary 
wrote a note to Jay urging him to commence negotiations 
with Aranda,. because a refusal to do so would be oifensive 
to the Spaniard ; which note was also left unanswered. 
Vergennes' next movement was, in the presence of Ar- 
anda, to say to Jay, that he had been already informed by 
the count of his authority to treat, and surely Jay would 
credit him. I>ut Jay was as immovable as he was brave, 
and refused to treat with an}' power which did not first 
acknowledge the independence of his country; and to 
every representation by Vergennes that this acknowledg- 
ment by Spain might be embraced in the treaty to be 
made, he proudly responded that the independence was 
the effect of their contest with the Crown, and that its 
acknowledgment must precede negotiation with any 
power; and thus, France and Spain continuing to act in 
concert for the double purpose of dividing our country 
and bringing our independence under the condescending 
protection of the French, all attempts at negotiation were 
for the time suspended. 

On the 25th of July, 1782, George III issued an order 
for a commission to Richard Oswald empowering him to 
treat with any " commissioner or commissioners named, 
or to be named by the thirteen colonies or plantations in 
North America," and by him a copy of this order was 
communicated to the American commissioners at Paris, 
and by them it was submitted to A'ergennes ; who advised 



24 The Spanish Conspiracy/. 

tliem to treat with Oswald, who was then in Paris, as soon 
as the commission should arrive. Dr. Franklin thought 
the commission to Oswald would do ; hut all the persua- 
sions and flatteries of the French court were unavailing 
to induce the resolute Jay to descend from the ground of 
independence to treat under the description of colonies. 
And now, Mr. Jay determined, that rather than enter 
upon any negotiation derogatory to the dignity of his 
country or injurious to the interests of his country- 
men, he would assume the responsihility of violat- 
ing the express commands of Congress, (that the Ameri- 
can commissioners should act under the advice of Ver- 
gennes,) and of refusing to act with his colleague. He at 
once conferred with Mr. Oswald, in order to render the 
latter instrumental in effecting an alteration in the terms 
of his commission ; and of such weight were his represen- 
tations to the representative of the British king, that it 
was at Oswald's own request that Mr. Jay prepared and 
gave to him a draught of such a commission as would be 
satisfactory, with which a carrier was at once dispatched 
to London. In the meantime Mr. Jay again declined to 
comply with tlie advice of Vergennes, who was ignorant 
of the result of the conference with Oswald, and who again 
urged the commencement of negotiations under the orig- 
inal commission. The answer to Oswald's dispatch, which 
was not sent until the court at London had received 
another from Mr. Fitzherhert, the British minister at 
Paris, — written immediately after the latter had held a 
private conference with Vergennes, — announced the pur- 
pose of King George to graM to America unconditional 
independence as an article of treaty. Jay elicited from Os- 
wald that this answer was suggested by Fitzherhert and 
that the British cabinet had been apprised of the opinion 
of Vergennes. It was obvious to Jay that France wished 
to postpone the acknowledgment of American independ- 
ence ; because, when that was done, the war wouUl be 
abandoned by Great Britian ; the states, having no longer 
any thing to apprehend from their adversary, would cease 
to look to France for protection and counsel, and would 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 25 

refuse to yield by treaty any of their rights, which France 
might barter away with England for concessions to herself 
and her ally — Spain. Thus relieved by the interference 
of Vergennes of all sentiments of delicacy towards 
France which otherwise he might have felt, Mr. Jay no 
longer scrupled to explain to Mr. Oswald the views and 
policy of the French court ; showed him that it was the 
interest of his government to render the United States as 
independent of France as they already were of Great 
Britain ; and drafted a joint letter from Dr. Franklin and 
himself declaring their unalterable determination not to 
treat with any other footing than that of independence ; — 
a letter which Dr. Franklin refused to sign, and which, 
therefore, was left unsigned by Jay, but the draught of 
which was given to Oswald, who sent it to his court. On 
the 6th of September, Mr. Jay received from Vergennes' 
secretary the letter already mentioned in regard to bound- 
aries ; — from which he discerned that it was the intention 
of France to oppose at the peace the extension of the 
United States and their claim to the navigation of the 
Mississippi ; 'probably to support the British-Spanish claims 
to the country above the 31st degree of latitude, and 'cer- 
tainly to all the country north of the Ohio ; and, in case the 
United States would not agree to divide with Spain in the 
manner proposed, to aid Spain in negotiating with Britain 
for the territory she wanted, and would agree that Britain 
should have the residue. On the 9tli Jay learned, that on 
the morning after writing this letter the secretary had a con- 
ference with Aranda and Vergennes, and had then imme- 
diateh' set out for London. His suspicions that the object 
of this visit was to arrange terms with Britain which would 
deprive the United States of their natural rights to take 
fish in the ISTorth American seas, that it might be divided 
with France to the exclusion of others ; to exclude them 
from the navigation of the Mississippi, and to divide the 
western country between Great Britain and Spain ; — these 
suspicions were confirmed by a copy of a letter he received 
addressed by Marbois, the French charge de affairs at 
Philadelphia, to Vergennes. Concealing his action from 



26 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Pr. Franklin, as well as from the French government, 
Mr. Jay immediately sent Mr. Vaughan, an English gentle- 
man who was well disposed to America and who resided in 
Paris, as a secret agent to the British secretary of state, 
instructed to report the determination which had already 
been announced, that American independence must be 
acknowledged preliminary to a treaty ; that the United 
States would never make a peace which would take from 
them their rights in the fisheries; and that the attempt to 
exclude them from the navigation of the Mississippi would 
sow the seeds of certain future war. The mission of Mr. 
"Vaughan was attended with such complete success, that 
on the 27th of September he returned to Paris, accom- 
panied by a courier who delivered to Oswald a commission 
authorizing him to treat with the commissioners of the 
United States of America; — and thus was our independence 
acknowledged. The negotiation, which was then immedi- 
ately entered upon between Mr. Oswald and the two 
American commissioners, resulted, in a few days, in an 
agreement upon certain preliminary articles, to be incor- 
porated in the treaty so soon as England and France 
should be ready to cease hostilities; — their alliance with 
France restraining the United States from making a sepa- 
rate peace. These articles were drawn by Mr. Jay, and, 
in most respects like those of the subsequent definitive 
treaty, secured the Mississippi and the fisheries, while the 
boundaries were even more extensive than those finally 
obtained. The British ministry hesitated to agree because 
of the extent of the boundaries, which included nearly 
the whole of Upper Canada, and because, also, the articles 
contained no provision for the Tories. In a contemporary 
conversation with the secretary of Vergennes, he contested 
our right to those back lands upon which Spain had set 
her eyes, and reiterated his views in regard to the fisheries. 
On the 26th of October, John Adams arrived in Paris, 
and in him Jay " found a very able aiul agreeable coadju- 
tor," who "concurred with him on all the points" which 
bad been raised. Franklin was ultimately brought around 
to their views, and assented to " o^o on with theui without 



The Spanish Conspirac)/. 27 

consulting this (the French) court," as instructed by Con- 
gress. On the 30th of November, the provisional articles, 
which amounted only to a contract between Great Britain 
and the United States, as to the terms of the treaty when 
that treaty should be made, were signed by the American 
commissioners and Mr. Oswald; and not until the event 
was it announced to Vergennes. On the 3d of Septem- 
ber of the following year, 1783, Mr. Jay signed the detini- 
tive treaty of peace, which gave to Spain the West and 
East Floridas ; and by which Great Britain formally ac- 
knowledged the independence of the United States, and 
recognized as their southern boundary a line drawn due 
east from a point in the Mississippi, in the latitude of 31 
degrees north, which was to be the dividing line between 
us and Spain. '^ It was thus that the seltish projects of 
France and Spain were discovered and frustrated by the 
sagacity, patriotism, firmness and courage of John Jay 
and John Adams ; and it was to these two, staunchest of 
the lovers of republican liberty, that it was due that our 
independence was not taken under the protection of the 
French monarchy, and that Kentucky did not become a 
French or a Spanish province. 

The health of Mr. Jay prevented an acceptance of the 
invitation of the Spanish court, that he would renew his 
negotiations with that power at Madrid. In tlie summer 
of 1784 he returned to the United States, and in Decem- 
ber of that year accepted the position of secretary of for- 
eign affairs. Spain had steadily refused to recognize him 
as the American minister to her court; but, in the spring 
of 1785, Don Diego Gardoqui arrived in Philadelphia 
bearing a commission from his Catholic nuijesty to Con- 
gress, Though this was not of a high grade, he was cour- 
teously presented by Mr. Jay, and was as courteously 
received by Congress. Sjtain had nuxde no treaty with 
the United States, and Jay's anticipation that the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi would continue tt) form an insuper- 



* These particulars have been gathered from the Life of .Tohn Jay, by 
William .Jav. 



28 2'hc S'paidsh Consjnracy. 

able obstacle to a treaty were fully realized. Besides this 
question, the conflicting claims of the United States and 
Spain were not easy to be reconciled. The treaty with 
Great Britain made the navigation of the Mississippi from 
its source to its mouth free alike to American and Span- 
iard, and fixed our southern boundary at a line to be 
drawn east from the Mississippi along the thirty-first de- 
gree of latitude. But the treaty also warranted West 
Florida to Spain, and the northern boundary of that prov- 
ince had been extended to a line drawn due east from the 
mouth of the Yazoo river, in latitude 32° 28'; and all the 
intervening territory the Spaniards had in actual military 
possession, and claimed to hold it also under the warranty 
of Great Britain ; and, as the owner of both banks of the 
Mississippi, insisted upon her exclusive right to its navi- 
gation within her own territory. The United States, on 
the other hand, claimed the right not only to navigate the 
river as far as their own territory on its east bank ex- 
tended, as fixed at the thirty-first degree, but to its mouth 
as well ; — on the ground that by the treaty with France 
of 1763, under which Spain claimed her right to the river 
and its navigation. Great Britain had from the same power 
derived a concurrent right of navigation from its source 
to the Gulf, and that the United States had succeeded to 
all the rights which had belonged to Great Britain under 
that treaty. 

As Gardoqui declared that liis king would never permit 
any nation to use the river, the United States was reduced 
to the alternative of permitting their claims to lie dormant 
for the present, or of supporting them by arms, v/hich they 
were in no condition to do. Congress had instructed Mr. 
Ja}^, as secretary of foreign affairs, "that he enter into no 
treaty, compact, or convention whatever, with the said 
representative of Spain, which does not stipulate the right 
of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi 
and the boundaries as established by the treaty with Great 
Britain." All negotiation was, therefore, suspended by 
these conflicting claims, and more than a year had passed 
without the slightest progress being made. On the 3d of 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 29 

September, 1786, in answer to the summons of Congress, 
Mr. Jay went before that body and announced his unal- 
terable adherence to the justice and importance of the 
claims of the United States, of which, as has been already 
seen, he had been the foremost and most influential advo- 
cate. He had, however, no anticipation of the rapidity 
of the future growth of the Vf est. He proceeded to state 
that a " proper commercial treaty with Spain would be of 
more importance to the United States than any they have 
formed, or can forhi, with any other nation." He drew 
attention to the family compact between France and 
Spain, which, "in case of a rupture between us and 
Spain," would almost certainly add France to our foes. 
The obstacles to the desired treaty were the questions of 
boundary and the navigation of the Mississippi, and he 
had found Gardoqui immovable on the latter topic. Un- 
less it could be in some manner settled, no treaty could be 
concluded. Spain already excluded us from the naviga-* 
tion, and held it with a strong hand against us, and it 
could only be acquired by wai\ We were not prepared 
for a war with Spain or any other power, and a large por- 
tion of the confederation would undoubtedly refuse to go 
to war with Spain for the object in question. Though the 
navigation would ultimately be of immense importance, 
he did not think it would be for twenty-five or thirty 
years, and it would be that long before we would be in a 
condition to enforce our rights. He, therefore, deemed it 
expedient to enter into a treaty with Spain limited to that 
time, and during which we " would forbear to use the 
navigation of that river below our own territories to the 
ocean;" — not cede or barter away our rights. He did not 
know that this would be acceptable to Spain, but he 
thought the experiment worth trying. But if this could 
not be effected, the " Mississippi would continue shut — 
France would tell us our claim to it was ill-founded. The 
Spanish posts on its banks, and even those out of Florida 
in our country would be strengthened, and that nation 
would then bid us defiance, with impunity, at least until 
the American nation shall become more really and truly a 



30 The Spanish Conspiracy. * 

nation than it at present is. For, unblessed with an effi- 
cient government, destitut<i of funds, and without public 
credit, either at home or abroad, we should be obliged to 
wait in patience for better days, or plunge into an unpop- 
ular or dangerous war with very little prospect of termi- 
nating it by a peace either advantageous or glorious. 
Supposing the Spanish business out of the question, yet 
the situation of the United States appears to me to be 
seriously delicate, and to call for great circumspection 
both at home and abroad ; nor, in my opinion, will this 
cease to be the case until a vigorous national government 
be formed, and public credit and confidence be estab- 
lished." * 

The delegates in Congress from the seven Northern 
States, voting by states and constituting a majority oi one, 
decided to rescind Mr, Jay's instructions and to leave 
him free, if found necessary in order to conclude a 
'treaty, to agree to forbear the use of the Mississippi be- 
low our own boundary, for twenty years ; the six South- 
ern States, voted against rescinding; and the General As- 
sembly of Virginia, by resolutions passed by the House in 
ISTovember and by the Senate on the 7th of December, 
1786, instructed her delegates never to accede to such a 
proposition, in which she wasj^ heartily supported by the 
other non-concurring states. It required the vote of nine 
states to give validity to any treaty which might be agreed 
upon by the representatives of tlie two governments, and 
the action of the six Southern States, in case they con- 
tinued to adhere to their position, made it certain that. a 
treaty containing such a provision would be rejected by 
Congress. But Mr. Jay, regarding the action of the seven 
states as abrogating the restriction upon him, in the spring 
of 1787 renewed with Gardoqui the negotiation (which 
had slumbered from the previous fall until then,) by pro- 
posing the stipulation which he had suggested to Con- 
gress, but modified in regard tJ time to twenty years, and 
which implied the acknowledgment by Spain of our right 



Secret Journals of Congress, IV, 45. 



The Spanish Consinracy. 31 

to a navigation wliich we were to have forborne for a 
definite, period. But the Spanish minister refusing as- 
sent to an article which thus conceded by necessary impli- 
cation our right to navigate that stream, rejected with equal 
hauteur a subsequent proposition of Mr. Jay which left 
the whole question of right in abeyance, and would con- 
sent to no treaty which did not in express terms formally 
abandon all claim of right by the United States to nav- 
igate that river below their own territory. The non-con- 
curring delegates to Congress vigorously assailed the as- 
sumption that seven states could authorize the minister to 
propose an article to a treaty which had been formally 
condemned by six states, when it required the assent 
of nine states to give validity to the treaty itself; and 
when Mr. Madison left Congress on the 2Gth of April, 
1787, to attend the convention to frame a new govern- 
ment, the project was considered to be at an end.* 

Washington, who had for years zealously advocated / 
the construction of a canal between the headwaters of the 
James and the Kanawha rivers, as a means of connectingthe 
west with the east, had, in June, 1786, written to Col. Henry i 
Lee, then a delegate in Congress, his opinion that it would 
be better " neither to relinquish nor to push our claim to 
this navigation," but in the meantime '' to open all the com- 
munications which nature has afforded between the At- 
lantic States and the western territory;" that "whenever 
the new states become so populous and so extended to the 
westward, as to really need it, there will be no power 
which can deprive them of the use of the Mississippi," 
and that in the meantime it would be best not to urge the 
subject; and closed with this remark, which exhibits at 
once his sagacity and his apprehensions : " It may re- 
quire some management to quiet the restless and impetuous 
spirits of Kentucky, of whose conduct I am more appre- 
hensive in this business than I am of all the opposition 
that will be given by the "Spaniards." The reply of Lee, 
who subsequently conformed to the instructions given by 



"Madison Papers, Vol. II, page 614. 



32 The Spaimh Consinracy. 

the General Assembly of his state, shows that his individual 
opinions were in advance of those of Washington and 
agreed with Jay, that exclusion from the Mississippi was 
at the time unimportant to the west, while the commer- 
cial advantages offered by Spain were of great value to 
the east, and that he was inclined to the course suggested by 
Mr. Jay a few weeks later,* The response of Washington, 
July 26th, 1786, states his previous ignorance of the diffi- 
culties in the way of a negotiation with Spain, and reasserts 
his opinion that address would be necessary in tempor- 
izing with Kentucky, the population of which was rapidly 
increasing. " There are many ambitious and turbulent 
spirits," he said, " among its inhabitants, who, from the 
present difficulties in their intercourse with the Atlantic 
States, have turned their eyes to ]N"ew Orleans, and may 
become riotous and ungovernable, if the hope of traffic 
with it is cut off by treaty.f" 

In another letter to Col. Lee, dated October 31st, 1786, 
Gen. Washington wrote : " With respect to the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi, 3'ou already know my sentiments. 
They have been uniformly the same, and, as I have ob- 
served to you in a former letter, are controverted by only 
one consideration of weight, and that is, the operation the 
occlusion of it may have on the minds of the western set- 
tlers, who will not consider the subject in a relative point 
of view, or on a comprehensive scale, and may be in- 
fluenced by the demagogues of the country to acts of ex- 
travagance and desperation, under the popular declamation 
that their interests are sacrificed." 



■•" See Sparks' Life of Washington, Vol. IX, page 173. 
t Ibid., page 180. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 33 



CHAPTER II. 

The Settlement op the West — Kentucky — Indian Hostilities — 
Geo. E.. Clark. 

Before the commencement of the French and Indian 
War, companies had been formed and had obtained grants 
of land with a view to the settlement of the country on 
the Monongahela and Upper Ohio. The prospecting tour 
of Dr. Thomas Walker, Captain Charles Campbell, the 
gallant Colonel James Patton, and their sssociates into 
Kentucky, as early as 1750, was not a mere idle voyage of 
adventure, but was made with a definite purpose of future 
colonization.* These various projects were interrupted 
by the breaking out of hostilities, but the struggle for su- 
premacy between France and Britain had scarcely been 
terminated by the treaty of 1763, when the thoughts of 
the enterprising were once more seriously turned towards 
the West. , The preparations for the contemplated move- 
ment were for only a brief time delayed by the wide 
spread conspiracy of Pontiac, which made the border 
streams of Pennsylvania and Virginia run with the 
blood of the frontier settlers. The confederation organ- 
ized by the sagacious and warlike chief speedily dissolved 
upon his failure to capture the strongholds at Detroit, 
Niagara and Fort Pitt; and the apprehensions and jealous- 
ies of the red men were in a measure and for a time 
allayed by the proclamation of 1763, to which reference 
has been made. The pacificatory effect of the assurances 
given in this proclamation was increased by the expedition 
of General Bradstreet upon the Erie, and of the gallant 



* The journal of Dr. Thomas Walker mentions the loss of his toma- 
hawk during a tremendous rain-storm. It was found long afterwards 
by one of the McAfee's on the banks of Dick's river ; this circumstance 
proves that he had penetrated as far as that stream. 
3 



34 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Swiss, Colonel Henry Bouquet, who penetrated to the 
Forks of the Muskingum, and on the 9th of ISTovember, 
1764, concluded a peace with the Shawanese and Dela- 
wares, securing- from them two hundred and six of their 
unfortunate captives, who were restored to their friends 
and homes. Bradstreet had already, about the 21st of 
August, concluded a treaty at Detroit with the head men 
of more than twenty tribes. The successes of Bradstreet 
and Bouquet paved the way for the yet more general 
treaty of peace made with the various tribes by Sir 
William Johnson, in April, 1765, at the German Flats; 
where the Indians proposed as a boundary beyond which 
the whites should not go the Ohio or Alleghany and 
Susquehanna, to which Johnson had no authority to 
accede ; and where the red men agreed to give the 
traders whom they had despoiled in the uprising of 1763, 
a large tract of land in compensation. 

In spite of the royal proclamation of 1763, the aggres- 
sive pioneers pushed their settlements not only to the 
Watauga, in the Cherokee country, but upon the Red- 
stone, the Monongahela, and the Cheat rivers, in regions 
claimed by the I^orthern Indians, and for which they had 
not yet received compensation ; — so that a general border 
war was once more feared. In the meantime, the Ohio 
Company, the soldiers claiming under Dinwiddle's pro- 
clamation, and individuals claiming under grants made by 
Virginia, were all clamoring for a perfection of their 
grants or a completion of their claims, while the Indians 
were raging at the constant encroachments upon them. 
The orders of General Gage, the Commander-in-Chief of 
his Majesty's forces, and of Sir William Johnson, the 
Indian Agent, for their removal were defied by the set- 
tlers, who remained upon and stoutly held their clearings. 
Every circumstance demanded that the boundary line sug- 
gested by the Indians at the conference in 1765, at the 
German Flats, should be fixed, and that their title to the 
lands ceded by that boundary should be extinguished. In 
the spring of 1768, Sir William Johnson received orders 
relative to a new treaty with the Indians for that purpose, 



The Spanish Con^nracy. 35 

and at once took measures to secure a full attendance of 
their representatives. The Congress, which was attended 
by deputies from all the Six Nations and the Shawanese 
and Delawares, met at Fort Stanwix, in October, 1768, and 
sat for nearly seven weeks. The boundary agreed upon 
began on the Ohio at the mouth of what is now called the 
Tennessee river; thence it ran up the Ohio and Alleghany 
to Kittauing, and thence across to the Susquehanna ; — 
thus transferring to the British all of the country south of 
the Alleghany and Ohio to which the Six Nations had any 
claim. The tract between the Monongahela and the 
Kanawha was conveyed to the traders who had been de- 
spoiled in 1763, who named it Indiana. The remainder, 
from the Kanawha down, was deeded to King George, for 
which the consideration in money and goods, aggre- 
gating more than £10,000, was paid down. It was agreed 
that no claim should ever be based upon the previous 
treaties at Lancaster and Logstown. 

Upon this treaty, which was not extorted from the In- 
dians under a pressure of disaster to them, nor by hard 
persuasion backed by force, but was made voluntarily and 
at once, rested the title of the crown to -Western Penn- 
sylvania, Western Virginia and Kentucky. The lands 
ceded were not occupied by any of the Six Nations, nor 
were they hunted over by the tribes of that confederacy, 
whose habitations and hunting lands were far distant. 
The cession was made by chiefs of tribes who were in no 
way directly or practically interested in the lands ceded, 
under the manipulations of Sir William Johnson, who had 
in contemplation the founding of a new and independent 
colony in the territory designated ; while the Ohio and 
Western Indians, who were immediately and greatly inter- 
ested, had no voice in the treaty. It is true the treaty 
itself states that the Delawares and Shawanese were pres- 
ent and acquiescing, but it is certain it was not signed by 
their chiefs, and that neither those nor any of the other 
tribes of the West recognized the validity of the grant 
which gave away their beautiful hunting lands. It is 
scarcely valuable to inquire into the right of the Six Na- 



36 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tious over this territory by reasou of their alleged con- 
quests of the Shawanese, Delawares, Miamis, and other 
tribes, nearly a century before ; the former exerted no 
practical dominion over the latter, who did not by any 
means assent to the " dependency " on their own part to the 
Six N'ations, which was asserted in the treaty by which 
they steadily refused to be bound. After all, the title was 
essentially and practically worthless, and the results to the 
settlers who planted themselves upon the lands, and to 
the tril^es from whom tljey were wrested, would not have 
been different had the treaty never been made. But the 
Cherokees also claimed Kentucky, and the histories con- 
tain vague allusions to a purchase made of their rights in 
a portion of the territory embraced in what is now ciClled 
by that name, by Colonel John Donaldson and by Dr. 
Thomas Walker at later dates. However, these treaties 
served the purpose of quieting the conscience of the 
white man, who could cite them as his authority for locat- 
ing amid the rich canebrakes and sightly groves of beau- 
tiful Kentucky, where the Indians did not live, but for 
the possession of which as their hunting lands the warlike 
tribes from the South and North had battled from remote 
ages. 

Settlements were made on the Kanawha in 1772. The 
hunters, traders, and explorers who had traversed Ken- 
tucky during the years following 1767, were but the pre- 
cursors of the surveyors, who, in 1773, advanced to the 
Ohio and made numerous surveys along that river and in 
the contiguous territory. Among others. Captain Thomas 
Bullitt had received a commission from Dr. John Conolly 
to run the lines for a tract of 2,000 acres at the falls of the 
Ohio, and in the fall of that year a patent was issued therefor 
by Virginia to that mischievous intriguer. Before proceed- 
ing upon his mission, BuUitt took the precaution to obtain 
the consent of the Indians at Chillicothe, to whom he was 
introduced by Richard Butler, and who assented on con- 
dition that they should not be disturbed in their hunting 
south of the Ohio; — which sufficiently exhibits their con- 
temptuous disregard for, if not their entire ignorance of, 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 37 

the treaty of Fort Stanwix. But the circumstance of 
most potent influence upon the future settlement of the 
country on the Ohio was the liberal bounty in western 
lands given to the officers and soldiers of the Virginia 
troops who had served in the British army in the war of 
1763. All Kentucky was then included in the vague 
boundaries of Fincastle county, Virginia, of which Will- 
iam Preston was at the time the surveyor. It was as the 
deputies of Preston, therefore, that John Floyd, Hancock 
Taylor, James Douglas, Hancock Lee, and others made 
their surveys for man}' of these officers and soldiers in 
1774, all along the south bank of the Ohio, up the Ken- 
tucky, and among the cane lands which skirted the Elk- 
horn. 

"While the relations between the white and the red men 
during the ten years succeeding 1763 were nominally 
peaceful, and were really so between the Indians and the 
Pennsylvanians, who were traders ; in fact there were fre- 
quent individual collisions between the Indians and the 
Virginians, who were settlers, and whose evident purpose 
it was to permanently possess and occupy the lands south 
of the Ohio. That the jealousy and animosity of the In- 
dians were thoroughly aroused by the advent of these 
numerous parties of hunters, explorers and surveyors, 
upon the hunting grounds of Kentucky, over which they 
had roamed for unknown centuries, was but natural. 
From 1769, when Stewart fell the first victim in Kentucky 
in the war between the races, it continued to be waged 
with equal and inextinguishable ferocity and cruelty on 
both sides, until this fair portion of creation had been 
finally wrested from the savage, and teemed with a manly, 
brave, and generous people. Here the white and the red 
man seldom or never met without instant aggression from 
the one side or the other. 

It is foreign to the purpose of these pages to more 
than mention the dispute between Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania concerning the boundary between those colonies, as 
indirectly connected with the events which, in 1774, con- 
verted the aggressive belligerency of individuals into open 



38 The S'panish Conspiracy. 

and general hostility between the races. The chief fomen- 
ter of the disturbances which grew out of that dispute 
was Dr. John Conolly; by whom also was issued the cir- 
cular to all the settlers on the Ohio below Fort Pitt, which 
led to the murder by Michael Cresap and his party of the 
friendly Indians whom William Butler had sent as mes- 
sengers to his agents and employes to return to Fort Pitt 
with the peltries on hand ; to the murder by Cresap of the 
peaceable Indians at Captina ; and to the murder by Great- 
house of the family of the Mingo Chief, Logan, at Yel- 
low creek, with every attending circumstance of mingled 
treachery, cruelty and cowardice. These were the out- 
rages which immediately led to the gathering of his 
dusky warriors by Logan, and their descent with aveng- 
ing hate upon the settlers on the Monongahela, and to 
the various kindred acts of retaliation and revenge, on 
both sides, which speedily culminated in Dunmore's war 
of 1774. The surveying operations in Kentucky were 
suspended, the country was at once abandoned by the va- 
rious parties of hunters, explorers and surveyors, to whom 
Boone and Stoner conveyed the warning messages of Dun- 
more, and who returned to Virginia, many of them to 
participate in the victory at Point Pleasant or to march 
with Dunmore into the Indian country in Ohio. They did 
not return to Kentucky until the ensuing year of 1775, 
when the first permanent settlements were made by Boone, 
Harrod, the McAfees, Logan and others. In the mean- 
time, in spite of the well understood proclamation of King 
George prohibiting all purchases of lands from the Indians 
by private persons, and notwithstanding the treaty of 
Fort Stanwix (of which they probably were not ignorant), 
Richard Henderson and his associates of Korth Carolina, 
concluded in March, 1775, at the Sycamore Shoals, on the 
Watauga river, a treaty with the Cherokees ; by which 
those Indians sold to the company all of whatever vague, 
shadowy ancl disputed claims they had upon a large part 
of the territory which the Six Nations had already sold to 
the King, and to which lands the Ohio Indians insisted that 
neither the Six Xations nor the Cherokees had any right or 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 39 

title. Before the arrival of the alleged new proprietors, 
Boone and his hardy woodsmen, acting as pioneers for 
this Transylvania Company, had erected the first cabins at 
Boonevsboro. The associates immediately proceeded to or- 
ganize what they designed as a proprietary government, 
independent of Virginia, (by which colony the right of 
dominion was claimed), and having its own separate exec- 
utive, legislative and judicial officers ; and not only did 
they assume the authority to sell lands and convey titles, 
but also to put in operation all the machinery and to ex- 
ert all the powers of government. Conflicts of titles and 
of jurisdiction at once sprung up, Virginia interfered and 
asserted her paramount authority, and, the proprietors ac- 
quiescing in the decision, the existence of the new repub- 
lic was transitory, leaving no ripple behind to show that it 
had been even contemplated. Thus, in the very inception 
of the settlement of Kentucky, when but a few hunters, 
woodsmen, adventurers and surveyor^ inhabited its entire 
expanse of hill and valley, of woodland, canebrake and 
prairie, and when but a few monarchs of the primeval 
forest with which to construct the scattering huts and 
weak stockades had been felled, was witnessed the first 
effort for independence. But in the movement there is not 
discernible a trace of disloyalty to the cause of republican 
liberty, to which Virginia and her sister colonies were soon 
to become irrevocably committed. 

Most notable of the daring spirits who had sought the 
west in 1774. was one of the gallant sons of a plain farmer 
of Albemarle county, Virginia, whose narrow and strait- 
ened circumstances did not permit him to afford his boys 
the educational advantages then within the reach of the 
offspring of wealthier Virginian planters. He was not in 
any sense well educated, even as that word was under- 
stood at the time in Virginia, where education was less 
general than it was in New England, but the more fortu- 
nate class of whose youth was not inferior to the same 
class in the more northern colonies in broad and liberal 
culture. A scanty knowledge of orthography and syntax, 
and a little acquaintance with backwoods surveying was 



40 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

about all the learning to be gleaned from the text books 
which the young Virginian possessed. But strong native 
powers, quick perception, and an intuitive knowledge of 
men, more than compensated for his deficiency in the learn- 
ing of the schools. His mental faculties were as ready and 
active as they were clear and vigorous. In enterprise he 
was as alert and audacious as he was cool, decided and in- 
trepid in action. His open and handsome countenance in- 
vited the confidence of all; his eminently manly and martial 
bearing at once secured respect. A life passed in the 
open air, sometimes in labor, but more 'generally in sur- 
veying or in hunting, had strengthened a hardy constitu- 
tion, had accustomed him to feats of endurance and en- 
dued him with uncomplaining fortitude. Instinctively 
men recognized in him a leader in all the vicissitudes of 
life on the border and in a debatable land. But to many 
of the highest and more valuable qualities was added the 
curse of passions he did not curb, and of appetites he 
could not control, which became his master, and which 
early sapped his strength, clouded his mind, undermined his 
character, and wrought his downfall. "While the story of 
the achievements of George Rogers Clark as related by 
the historians is the most brilliant of all that illumine the 
annals of the west, that of his life, if truthfully written, 
would be found one of the saddest and most pitiful. 

In 1772, Clark had come as far west as the Kanawha. 
Two years later he was on his way to Kentucky, and had 
reached a point some distance below Wheeling, in April, 
1774, when he and the band of hunters with whom he 
was journeying determined to inaugurate a war against 
the Indians, under the leadership of Michael Cresap. It 
is ascertained from Clark's letter written in defense of 
Cresap, that the former was with the latter when the 
Indian messengers of William Butler were killed, and 
when the peaceful encampment at Captina was assailed ; 
and it is mainly to his testimony that Cresap is indebted 
for his vindication from the charge brought by Jefferson, 
that he was the butcher of the family of Logan. Re- 
turning with Cresap to Redstone, Clark and most of the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 41 

huuters with him enlisted under Dunmore in the war 
which quickly followed, and the speedy recognition of 
Clark's singular capacity for command and personal in- 
trepidity obtained for him a captain's commission. He 
was with Dunmore in his march into Ohio. During that 
fall and winter Clark, and many of the other soldiers under 
Dunmore and Andrew Lewis, made arrangements to pro- 
ceed in their purpose to establish themselves in Kentucky, 
which had been interrupted b}' the brief . but bloody 
struggle with the Indians; and the early spring of 1775 
found him at Harrodsburg, where he at once assumed the 
leadership of as hardy and as brave a band of adventurers 
as any the world ever saw. In the fall he returned to Vir- 
ginia, but the next spring made his way a second time to 
Kentucky, with whose settlement, defense and progress 
his name during the next ten years is inseparably and most 
honorably associated. He found the public mind, as well 
as public affairs in the new settlements all in confusion. 
The claims of proprietorship asserted by the Transylvania 
Company were repudiated by many of the settlers, who 
preferred a formal request to Virginia to assert her para- 
mount authority. l!^orth Carolina also denounced and re- 
jected the private treaty made between Henderson and the 
Cherokees, and it was a disputed question whether the 
alleged purchase was within the jurisdiction of Virginia 
or in that of Forth Carolina. This knot the prompt mind 
of Clark decided to cut without waiting for it to be untied. 
At his suggestion a public meeting was held at Harrods- 
burg in June, 1776, which elected himself and John Gab- 
riel Jones as members of the Virginia Assembly, provision 
for which was made by the convention of 1776. It is said, 
in the sketch published in Collins and written by a friendly 
and most partial hand,* that this action was a disappoint- 
ment to Clark, who wished to be appointed as an agent to 
negotiate terms with Virginia and not as a mere represent- 
ative of a handful of the people of the new common- 
wealth. It may well be doubted if he had as yet fully 



Probably tbe late Judge Pirtle, who married a relative of Clark. 



42 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

formulated any plan, except that if Virginia failed at once 
to assert her jurisdiction, lie intended to use the lands of 
Kentucky as a fund to invite settlers and with them to es- 
tablish an independent state [Collins]. Yet, accepting the 
inferior commission confided to their hands, he and his 
associate set out at once for Virginia. They found the 
convention adjourned, and the assembly not yet met. 
Their application to the council for ammunition with 
which to defend the west being met with a proposition 
to le7id instead of give the needed supplies, it is stated by 
his eulogist in Collins, that Clark rejoined "that a country 
which is not worth defending is not worth claiming;" 
plainly intimating his intention to carry out his original de- 
sign, to disregard the jurisdiction which the squeamish coun- 
cil hesitated to maintain for Virginia, and at once to assert 
and to endeavor to establish for the settlers who were hud- 
dled together at Boonesboro, St. Asaphs and Harrod's an ab- 
solute independence and sovereignty. The thread which 
bound spirits lil<:e his in the west to their countrymen in the 
east was indeed slender. Whether he could have carried 
with him the earnest men who had sent him as their repre- 
sentative, and not as their ambassador, to Virginia; and 
what might have been the effect of the action which he 
contemplated in a contingency which did not arise, are 
themes for conjecture. The powder which Clark de- 
manded was furnished by the council, was conveyed by 
Clark and Jones and seven others from Pittsburg to Cabin 
creek, and thence was taken to the stockades of the in- 
terior. The lirst assembly of the new State of Virginia 
met in October, 1776. The record of the proceedings of 
its house of delegates on the second day of the session 
shows, that on that day was presented the petition of the 
"inhabitants on the western parts of Fincastle county," 
stating their grievances against the Transylvania Company, 
recognizing the jurisdiction and authority of Virginia, an- 
nouncing their action in the election of two persons as 
members of the assembly, and requesting their admission 
as such, and avowing their readiness " to assist in the 
present laudable cause, by contributing their quota of men 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 43 

and money." Two days later the committee reported to 
the house that the said persons could not be admitted as 
members because the " western part of Fincastle " was 
not allowed by law a distinct representation, but that "the 
said inhabitants ought to be formed into a distinct county, 
in order to entitle them to such representation ; " and, 
after disagreements between the house and senate had 
been reconciled, a bill was finally passed abolishing Fin- 
castle and dividing its territory into three distinct coun- 
ties, one of which was Kentucky. The qualification for 
electors and representatives in the said county were " the 
possession of twenty-five acres of land with a house or 
plantation thereon, or one hundred acres without a house 
and plantation, and having right to an estate for life at 
least in the said land in his own right, or in right of his 
wife." 

Having returned to Harrodsburg late in December, 
1776, during the next two years Clark was constantly 
alert, active and energetic. Now in the interior of Ken- 
tucky defending the settlers and their stations; again 
along the Ohio, watching the Indians and guarding against 
invasion ; then passing to and from Virginia, planning 
offensive measures and perfecting the organization neces- 
sary to their execution ; — his vigilance was as ceaseless as 
his resolution was dauntless. The winter of 1778-9 wit- 
nessed his daring capture of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, 
which transferred our boundary to the northern lakes and 
added to the repubhc five states, rich in all the resources of 
boundless material development, and teeming with a popu- 
lation of restless energies. Had the achievement been less 
far-reaching and splendid in its ultimate results, it would 
still excite the admiration of all, by the endurance, hardi- 
hood, and courage of the men engaged, and by the audacity 
and skill of the hero by whom it was planned and executed. 
Henceforth the services of Clark were of a national char- 
acter. The fort established by him at the Falls was of no 
avail to protect the settlers of the interior from forays by 
small bands of savages which crossed the Ohio at many 
points above and below. Still less could it prevent those 



44 The Sjjanish Conspiracy. 

larger expeditions of warriors and trained savages under 
the leadership of white mpn, which were organized and 
equipped at Detroit, and which in secret wound their ways 
up the valleys of the Kentucky and the Licking until they 
reached points from which to vent their hate upon de- 
tached settlers, or to strike at the stations destined for 
assault or siege. Their defense devolved upon other gal- 
lant men, who in turn carried havoc, reprisal, aud ven- 
geance to the Indian towns of Ohio and Indiana. But it 
is foreign to our purpose to name them or to dwell upon, 
their feats of daring, upon the instances of generous self- 
sacrifice which proved them noble, upon the sufferings 
and horrors to which they were subjected, or upon the dan- 
gers they braved with unquailing hearts aud unflinching 
nerve. The last invasion of Kentucky by any large body 
of Indians ended at the disastrous battle of the Blue 
Licks. The preliminary treaty of peace with Great Brit- 
ain was made known in Kentucky in the spring of 1783, 
and in July of that year, George R. Clark was formally 
notified by the governor of Virginia, in terms of praise 
and gratitude, that the state was no longer able to employ 
him as a general ofl&cer in her service.* 



* On the 103d page of his " Pohtical Beginnings," referring to the pas- 
sage of the Ordinance of 1787, Colonel John Mason Brown says : " That 
wide domain, from the Scioto to the Father of Waters, over which the 
unaided valor of Virginia's sons in Kentucky had established dominion, 
was readily absorbed into the new nation that was forming." The 
writer has been unable to find in the " Beginnings " any reference to 
the fact, that a large part of the men who marched with Clark against 
Kaskaskia and Vincennes were recruited in Virginia for that purpose. 
This omission, coupled with the statement just quoted, would convey the 
impression that the Illinois was captured by Clark and such soldiers as 
he was able to obtain in Kentucky alone, unaided from Virginia or any 
other source. This would seem to render proper the correction : That 
not only were a large part of the arms and all the ammunition obtained 
from Pittsburg, and paid for by Virginia ; not only were the men paid, 
the supplies bought, and all the expenses borne, by Virginia; — but, in 
addition, a considerable portion of the men engaged were recruited in 
Virginia, and were transported by her from Pittsburg to the rendezvous 
at the falls, while others under Colonel Bowman marched by way of 
the Cumberland Gap and joined Clark. The impression has prevailed 
among many that nearly all the warfare in Kentucky and the West was 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 45 

the result of merely individual effort. But, so far from that being the 
case, the men engaged in all this fighting acted as a part of the regular 
militia system of Virginia, and while in active service were regularly 
paid by that state. Formal reports of the ammunition and commissary 
supplies furnished to Boonesboro, Harrod's, and St. Asaphs were made 
by quartermasters to the Virginia executives, and the bills were settled 
bj'^ them. Some of those made by Joseph Lindsey (who fell at Blue 
Licks) the writer has examined. In every respect they would do credit 
to any quartermaster-general in the regular army. 



46 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Indian Question at the Close op the Revolution — Efforts op 
Congress to Preserve Peace— They are Rendered Ineffective 
BY the Jealousy of the States. 

That during the Revolution the Indian aggressions upon 
the Iventuckians were inspired and aided, and even 
planned and led by the Eritish, is not open to dispute. It 
was fondly hoped that, upon the conclusion of the defini- 
tive treaty of peace in 1783, the ratification of which, by 
the parties was exchanged in May, 1784, the British mili- 
tary posts in the north-west would be at once surrendered, 
and that the Americans would then be able to control the 
Indians. But one of the articles of the treaty prohibited 
tbe British from carrying away slaves belonging to the 
citizens of any of the States, and this was disregarded ; 
the British contending that the agreement did not apply 
to negroes who had been previously freed by acts of 
war, and denying that they had taken away any others. 
While there may have been force in their argument, it is 
unquestionable that some of the negroes carried ofi" by 
them were not in their hands, and had not become free 
by the acts of war, at the time the treaty was signed. It 
was also agreed in the treaty, that Congress would recom- 
mend to the States the repeal of all laws which interposed 
obstacles to the recovery of debts due to British citizens; 
and this Congress did, but, having no power to enforce 
this advice, it was rejected by several of the States, and no- 
tably by Virginia. It is probable that Great Britain had 
never entirely abandoned the hope of regaining the coun- 
try west of the AUeghanies, or, at least, of separating it 
from the Atlantic States, and of extending over it her 
protection. At any rate, the failure by Virginia and other 
States to repeal their laws obstructing the collection of 
debts due to British citizens, was made the pretext for re- 



The. Spanish Conspiracy. 47 

fusing to surrender the military posts on the northern 
frontier, which were within the acknowledged limits of the 
United States as defined in the treaty of 1783. For a time 
after the declaration of peace the Indians continued pa- 
cific in their actions, if not in their intentions. But hav- 
ing never acknowledged the sovereignty of Great Britain, 
nor having ever been conquered by the United States, they 
found it impossible to comprehend how a treaty between 
those powers, with which they had had nothing to do, could 
extend over them the dominion of one of the parties thereto. 
They were divided into many tribes having between them 
no bond, while the 'several tribal organizations themselves, 
sometimes strong in the numbers and prowess of their 
warriors, were always Aveak in the absence of power to 
control the vicious of their own members. Thus it often 
happened that, while the great mass of the Indians might 
desire peace, a single tribe would be resolved on war ; or, 
that a few bad men in a tribe would engage in rapine, for 
which the larger portion of the tribe were not willingly 
responsible. Nor was the wrong all on one side. In a 
country situated as Kentucky then was, it was inevitable 
that it should become a place of refuge for a full quota of 
the lawless from other sections, who found a vent upon the 
red men for their murderous and predatory passions. The 
savage blows in Kentucky invariably descended upon the 
innocent ; and, if reprisal was sought by the whites across 
the river, the chances were a hundred to one that the 
guilty escaped while the unofiending perished. Thus, un- 
der conditions of a nominal peace, occurrences having all 
the features of the most horrible and relentless war were 
only too frequent ; and though these were individual rather 
than general, they were not the less potent to keep the 
passions of the populations on both sides of the river in a 
condition of constant irritation. It is true that the acts 
which occasioned so much recrimination and retaliation 
were often and designedly exaggerated ; yet enough was 
real and undoubted to constitute a serious grievance which 
loudly called for action and redress. That the Indians on 
their part were incited and encouraged by the retention of 



48 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the posts by the British is certain ; and the charge was as 
sincerely believed as it was generally made at the time, that, 
after the declaration of peace, the murders and depreda- 
tions by the savages in Kentucky were directly aided and 
countenanced by his majesty's officers at Detroit and else- 
where. 

Upon the cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, 
Congress found itself immediately confronted by this In- 
dian question : Should a war of extermination be waged 
against these powerful tril5es, which would be swiftly 
bound together by common danger ; or should a pacific 
policy be pursued and an honest effi)rf be made to concili- 
ate them by a course of justice and forbearance ? The 
latter alternative was wisely chosen. But what was the 
Congress which made this election ? At the conception 
of the Revolution, Congress began to conduct the Govern- 
ment, without any real authority, but its legislation was 
generally accepted by the States under the pressure of 
stern necessity ; yet the central authority existed only by 
sufferance and might at any time be set at naught by the 
caprice or selfishness of the States. The public exigency 
demanded something more stable; the plan for a perpet- 
ual union under the Articles of Confederation was re- 
ported, adopted and submitted to the States for ratifica- 
tion, but that ratification was not finally completed by the 
action of Maryland until nearly the close of the Revolu- 
tion. When this was done the government thereby 
formed amounted to little more than a mere agency for in- 
dependent States, wanting in all the essentials of actual au- 
thority and real power. The executive as well as the leg- 
islative functions were vested in Congress ; for a general 
judiciary no provision was made. No treaty could be 
valid unless ratified by nine of the States; no act of legis- 
lation was complete without the consent of an equal num- 
ber. Even then the central authority was lacking in the 
auxiliary machinery necessary to the strict enforcement of 
the treaties so made or of the laws so enacted. Saddled 
with the duty of providing for the payment of the war 
debt. Congress was not clothed with authority to levy or 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 49 

enforce the collection of taxes necessary to that end, but 
could only recommend to the States the levying of those 
taxes, which some of them did promptly, while others 
were dilatory, and some absolutely refused. It had the ex- 
clusive power of making peace or declaring war; but 
could neither raise nor equip an army, nor provide for its 
support when put in the field. That had to be done by 
and through the actions of the States, which might raise 
the men and provide the money at once to meet the exi- 
gency ; or dally with the importunity ; or altogether de- 
cline, as was dictated by a sense of duty, or by mean cen- 
soriousness and jealousy, or by the caprice of demagogues 
for the time in the ascendant. The desire of independ- 
ence and the authority of Washington surmounted all 
these difficulties in the Revolution ; but when the imme- 
diate necessity impelling to exertion and sacrifice was 
withdrawn, the Government was on every side balked and 
thwarted from the beginning, and the condition of public 
affairs soon became one bordering on chaos. In the midst 
of all the difficulties by which it was beset, the Govern- 
ment was denounced as imbecile and disgraced, by the 
very men who were the most open and active in setting at 
defiance its just and necessary authority, and who were 
the most potent factors, by their villification, contumacy 
and plots, in rendering it " despised abroad " and causing 
it to be " disobeyed at home ;" and yet who, as naturally as 
inconsistently, preferred it, and preferred it for that very 
reason, to the new union, the Constitution of which they 
did all in their power to defeat, which they sought by con- 
struction to render even more despicable than the Confed- 
eration had ever been, and the friends of which they never 
ceased to revile. And it was inevitable that, in later years, 
the weak and sycophantic apologists for men who con- 
stantly misrepresented the actions and motives of the Gov- 
ernment should find, in this denial to it of necessary pow- 
ers, a justification for the corrupt intrigues and treasonable 
conspiracies by which they sought to divide the Union on 
the very eve of its birth. [See Butler, page 172.] It was 
4 



50 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

most fortunate for the hopes which depended upon suc- 
cess in surmounting all these difficulties, that there were 
others who had from the beginning viewed with alarm 
these defects, and had urged with sagacious patriotism 
the formation of a government clothed with power to en- 
force its own laws and to defend its own life ; who, while 
striving to apply the needed remedy, loyally upheld the 
weak hands of the only government they had which rep- 
resented even the shadow of American nationality ; who 
remembered with gratitude that, even such as it was, it 
was under this government their strong arms had wrested 
their independence from the British king, and that, until 
a better could be devised and adopted, upon its support 
the maintenance of that independence solely rested; who, 
therefore, while always striving for something stronger 
than this " mere rope of sand," bore with patience the 
shortcomings that were inevitable under the existing con- 
ditions ; wdio felt themselves linked with hooks stronger 
than those of steel to their sister States, by all their mutual 
sufferings and common sacrifices of blood and treasure in 
the war which the equal gallantry of all had brought to a 
glorious issue; and in whose hearts the sacred flame of 
patriotism was ever kept brightly burning. 

Complaints made to Congress on behalf of whites in 
Kentucky of robberies and murders perpetrated by the 
Indians, were met by counter complaints from the agents 
appointed by Congress of outrages by whites upon peace- 
able Indians in Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana. While the 
whites insisted that the Indians were wholly to blame, the 
Indians could with justice retort that the murders of whites 
were by lawless red men for whom they were not responsi- 
ble ; that these murders were perpetrated in retaliation, and 
that the blows which fell upon themselves were inflicted 
on the wholly innocent. While the whites had the greater 
degree of justice on their side, and had suffered the more 
seriously, the representations of the Indian agents were 
entitled to weight and had a basis of truth'. To distin- 
guish the guilty Indians was impossible, nor could it be 
always determined to what tribes they belonged. Con- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 61 

gress had but just inaugurated what was designed as a pacific 
policy; an invasion of the Indian territory by any large 
body of troops and striking indiscriminately at the Indians 
would have been inconsistent with all these professions 
and have kindled a general war. In the meantime, the 
settlers in Kentucky were naturally restive under their 
many grievances. Congress was not indifferent to their 
sufferings, but the jealousy of the States refused to Con- 
gress the means of efficient action. If Congress moved 
more slowly than was demanded by conditions apparent to 
Kentuckians, the embarrassment and perplexity of the 
situation as it appeared to Congress, as well as the defi- 
ciency of means at the disposal of Congress, should be 
remembered. The idea which was then promulgated by 
demagogues, that the failure to act as expeditiously and 
as vigorously as the occasion appeared to them to demand, 
proceeded from hostility to the western people on the part 
of their countrymen in the east, from a callous indifference 
to their sufferings and grievances, or from an unnatural 
sympathy with the Indians and prejudice against the 
whites in the conflict, will not now be received with favor 
by the unbiased historian nor be countenanced by the 
candid thinker. 

Pursuing the policy of pacification which had been de- 
termined upon, in March, 1784, George Rogers Clark, 
Richard Butler, N'athaniel Greene, Oliver Walcott and 
Stephen Higginson were appointed by Congress to nego- 
tiate with the red men. Higginson and Greene declining 
to act, Arthur Lee and Benjamin Lincoln were appointed 
in their places. The necessity for protecting the commis- 
sioners by an armed force pending the negotiations upon 
which they were directed to enter, occasioned the intro- 
duction of several propositions to provide the requisite 
troops ; but, after prolonged debate in Congress, the best 
that could be done was to secure a recommendation to the 
States to furnish seven hundred men from their militia, 
three hundred of whom were to be used in the immediate 
protection of the commissioners. In the following Octo- 
ber, a treaty of peace and friendship was concluded with 



52 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix by Butler, "Walcott and 
Lee ; and in January, 1785, a similar treaty wdtli "Wyan- 
dottes, Chippewas, Delawares and Ottawas was concluded 
at Fort Mcintosh by Butler, Clark and Lee. In March of 
the same year additional commissioners were appointed to 
treat with the Southern Indians, and in N"ovember a treaty 
was negotiated by Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, 
Joseph Martin and Lauchlan Mcintosh, with the Cher- 
okees, at Hopewell ; which was followed in January, 1786, 
by treaties with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, negotiated 
by the same commissioners. The circle was completed by 
a treaty concluded in January, 1786, at the mouth of the 
Miami, with the Shawanese and some of the Delawares 
and Wyandottes, by Butler, Clark and Parsons, the last 
named having taken the place of Lincoln.* However 
well intentioned these philanthropic measures were, they 
did not cause a cessation of individual warfare between 
the Kentuckians and Indians. A large number of the 
Shawanese, who had been coerced by the treaty at the 
mouth of the Miami to acknowledge the absolute sover- 
eignty of the United States over the whole country ceded 
by Great Britain ; to yield up the ownership of large tracts 
of their most valuable lands on the east side of the Miami 
to the United States for settlement by the whites ; and to 
receive as a g7^ant from the United States the lands on the 
west of the Miami, of which they had had the undisputed 
possession for ages, were incensed at those provisions, and 
wreaked their vengeance upon the Kentuckians. The 
Indians on the Wabash further to the west, who had never 
entered into any of these treaties, had their apprehensions 
and jealousies excited to fever heat by the various meas- 
ures indicating a purpose by the whites to settle upon 

* It appears from General Butler's private journal, published in the 
" Olden Time," in 1846, that lie, and not Clark, was the actor in the 
scene with Kew-Kewepellethe, which has been attributed to Clark by 
Judge Hall. The account given by Butler was written on the very day 
of its occurrence. The journal in question was given to the publisher 
of the " Olden Time," by General Butler's son, the gallant Captain 
James Butler of the " Pittsburg Blues," in the war of 1812. There 
can be no doubt of its authenticity. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 53 

their territory, and continued their hostile aggressions. 
In the meantime bands of white men traversing the 
country on both sides of the river rarely met an Indian 
without killing him ; and their acts were retaliated upon 
the people of the district. These harassments and out- 
rages became so frequent and grievous, that the county 
lieutenants made an earnest and spirited representation to 
Patrick Henry, then the Governor, soliciting protection ; 
and, as Virginia herself possessed no technical right, with- 
out the authority of Congress, to authorize a hostile expe- 
dition into the territory north of the Ohio, which she had 
previously ceded to the central government, these com- 
plaints and demands for redress were in time laid before 
Congress. The treaties recently made, the complaints re- 
ceived of aggressions by the whites upon the Indians, 
combined with the inherent weakness and lack of means 
of the central authority '^o prevent immediate action by 
Congress. During the summer of 1786, Governor Henry 
informed the people of Kentucky that he had represented 
their situation to Congress, and had urged the adoption of 
measures for their protection ; but in a private letter to 
Benjamin Logan he stated the inaction of Congress. At 
the same time he gave general directions to the county lieu- 
tenants, instructing them " to adopt the necessary means 
of defense;" — which, as no one had ever doubted their 
perfect right under the laws to resist attack and repel in- 
vasion, was construed to authorize offensive operations as 
the most effectual means of defense. A meeting of militia 
officers was held at Harrodsburg. Benjamin Logan, who 
was the senior county lieutenant, and as such was entitled 
to command, gave his opinion that George Rogers Clark, 
who was not then in commission, should be called on to 
lead them, and, under this advice, Clark was placed at the 
head of a force of a thousand men, who speedily assembled 
and marched for the rendezvous at Clarksville, opposite 
the Falls. In the meantime, as doubts were entertained 
of the power of county lieutenants to impress men, pro- 
visions and supplies, that question was submitted to the 
judges of the district court, who gave a written opinion 



54 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

that all the power possessed by the assembly was dele- 
gated to and vested in the county lieutenants. Prior to the 
levying and mobilization of this force, the slowly moving 
Congress had responded to the appeals of Governor Henry 
by sending to the Falls two companies of regulars, out of 
the few placed under their control by the jealous states, 
and upon the 30th of June had authorized the raising of 
the militia of Kentucky, and the invasion of the country 
of the mischief makers, under the command of the leading 
United States officer [Western Annals]. "While, there- 
fore, the expedition, which was originally designed as 
against the Wabash Indians, was not organized nor un- 
dertaken under these orders of Congress, yet these 
orders may be fairly construed as fully sanctioning the 
aggressive movements which had been directed by the 
Virginia executive. It is now necessary, before pro- 
ceeding further, that the reader shall turn back a few 
years in this review of the record. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 55 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Initial Struggles of Kentucky for Autonomy. 

For some years prior to the treaty of peace with Great 
Britain, Benjamin Logan had been second only to Clark 
in command and influence ; he was " second to none, per- 
haps, in the peculiar military talents which the defense of 
this country at that time required." When Clark was re- 
tired from his position as a general officer in the service of 
Virginia, the direction of military affairs in the district 
devolved upon Logan, as senior colonel and senior county 
lieutenant (of Lincoln county). In 1784, he received in- 
formation of a proposed invasion of the district by the 
Cherokees in large numbers. Whether the intelligence 
was purely sensational, or the project was abandoned, can 
not positively be affirmed ; but that Logan gave full credit 
to the communications made to him is as certain as that 
the invasion itself was never actually made. On his own 
responsibility he issued a call for a meeting of the ofiicers 
of all the several military organizations of the district, to 
be held in Danville in November, 1784, for the purpose of 
consultation upon measures necessary to repel the threat- 
ened attack, or to anticipate it by carrying war home to 
the Cherokee country. The sense of the meeting was 
unanimous that the true policy of defense was not to await 
the torch and tomahawk of the Indians at the hearths of 
the detached settlers, but by ofiensive operations to fight 
the battle in the Indian country. But no one was author- 
ized to order such an expedition ; and, if ordered, there 
were no laws providing for calling out the militia, to pay 
for provisions, or for the services of ofiicers or men, nor to 
purchase the necessary ammunition ; and it was felt that 
the danger \^~as not sufiiciently apparent nor immediate to 
justify a reliance upon voluntary contributions or enlist- 



56 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

ments. So tlie contemplated movement was abandoned.* 
This meeting of militia officers called by Logan issued a 
circular address to the people of the district, recommend- 
ing that on a day named each militia company should 
elect one representative, to meet at Danville, on the 27th 
of December, 1784, to take into consideration the same 
important question of self defense. This meeting was 
held at the time and place designated, and was presided 
over by William Fleming, who is briefly described in the 
"Political Beginnings" as "an influential citizen. "f The 



* In this connection it may be regarded as worthy of note, that, on 
the 22d of May preceding this meeting, James Speed, the grandfather 
of Mr. Lincoln's attorney-general of the same name, who had been ap- 
pointed a magistrate at the urgent solicitation of Willis Green, the clerk 
of Lincoln, wrote from his home in that county to Gov. Harrison: 
"Many of the inhabitants of this place (Danville?) are not natives of 
Virginia, nor well affected to its government, and are sowing sedition 
among its inhabitants as fast as they can, which I fear will have too 
great an effect so long as we are pent up in forts and stations, notwith- 
standing the attorney-general (Walker Daniel) has taken every step in 
his power to suppress them. ... I fear the faction will increase, 
and ere long we shall revolt from government in order to try if we can 
govern ourselves, which, in my opinion, will be jumping out of the fry- 
ing pan into the fire." [ Virginia State Papers.} 

tCol. William Fleming was a native of Scotland, and was educated 
as a physician. He came to America after the Braddock campaign, but 
saw some military service before the conclusion of the French and 
Indian war. He settled in Bottetourt county, Va., and commanded the 
regiment from that county at Point Pleasant, where he was wounded. 
He was long a member of the Virginia assembly and council, and in 
1881 was for a time acting governor of that state. He was a large land 
owner in Kentucky, and at the time represented in the Virginia senate 
the district which included all Kentucky as well as Bottetourt, and a 
number of other counties in the valley and South-western Virginia. He 
came to Kentucky in 1779 as one of a commission to provide for the exe- 
cution of the statute to regulate the claims to land in the district. He 
returned to Kentucky in the fall of 1782, with Samuel McDowell, 
Thomas Marshall and Caleb Wallace, who, with him, constituted a com- 
mission to settle the accounts of the officers engaged in the several ex- 
peditions against the Indians. He did not settle in Kentucky, but, 
being here at the time the meeting of 1784 was held, his ofiicial position 
as the senator of the district naturally suggested him as a suitable per- 
son to preside over its deliberations. Col. Fleming's wife was a sister of 
Col. William Christian. The present William B. Fleming, of Louisville, 
is their great grandson. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 57 

meeting was animated by patriotism ; its conduct was 
marked by decorum. In its judgment many of the ob- 
stacles to that vigorous defense of the district which was 
sought by its members could be remedied by suitable leg- 
islation by the general assembly ; but others, and those the 
most serious^, from the essential nature of the situation 
could only be overcome by a separation from Virginia and 
the erection of the district into an independent member of 
the confederation. 

These opinions were embodied in a resolution in favor 
of applying to the General Assembly for legislation ren- 
dering Kentucky independent of Virginia. This met 
with opposition from many, whom the suggested action 
filled with strong forebodings. The meeting, therefore, 
modestly forbearing to make the contemplated application 
to the General Assembly, earnestly recommended to the 
people, that, at their regular elections for members of the 
Virginia Assembly, in the ensuing April, they should 
choose delegates to meet in convention at Danville, in 
May, for the express purpose of considering and deciding 
the question of an application for the suggested sepa- 
ration. Accordingly, twenty-five delegates were elected 
from the counties of Fayette, Jefferson, Lincoln and Nel- 
son, into which the district had then been divided, and or- 
ganized by the election of Col. Samuel McDowell,* as 



* A sketch of Col. McDowell may be found in " Historic Families of 
Kentucky," by the writer of these pages. In his "Border Warfare, " 
Withers states that John McDowell was a private soldier in the French 
and Indian war, in the company commanded by Lewis. The list of the 
soldiers published in Henings' Statutes shows that it was Samuel. Both 
Arbuckle and Stuart omit the name of McDowell from the list of cap- 
tains who fought at Point Pleasant. A news letter written at the time 
and published in Belfast, as well as the account given of the battle by 
Isaac Shelby, shows that one of the captains who, after Fleming and 
Lewis had fallen, advanced with Field and checked the triumphant In- 
dians, was McDowell ; and the records of the convention of 1776, of which 
he was a useful member, prove that Samuel McDowell commanded a com- 
pany in that battle. Peyton, in his "History of Augusta County," states that 
Major Alexander Stuart commanded the regiment of Virginia militia, 
from Augusta and Rockbridge, which did such gallant service at the 
battle of Guilford Court House, — commanded it in the absence of Col. 



58 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

president and Thomas Todd as secretary. Of this con- 
vention, George Winter, Christopher Greenup, James 
Speed, Robert Todd, Robert Johnson, Caleb Wallace, Ben- 
jamin Logan, Willis Green, Hary Innes, Levi Todd, 
Richard Taylor, James Garrard and John Edwards were 
members. It was decided that a separation from Virginia 
by constitutional methods, and admission as an equal 
member into the confederation, were desirable; that a pe- 
tition to the General Assembly in accordance with this 
judgment be prepared; that an address to the people ot 
the district be published ; and that the proceedings of the 
convention, the petition and the address be referred to 
another convention composed of delegates to be elected in 
July, 1785, and to meet in Danville in the following Au- 
gust. The acts of the convention were direct; the lan- 
guage employed was free from ambiguity; and there is 
evidence in what w^as done of an absence of ulterior de- 
signs. The convention could have acted immediately as 
well as refer its proceedings to another similar body. 
Marshall attributes its failure to do so and the delicate con- 
servatism of its course to an uncertainty of an approval 
by the people, among whom there was far more pro- 
nounced opposition to the separation than there was 
among the members of the convention. The petition to 
the Assembly, calm and temperate, and exhibiting no 
efibrt at display, breathed the true spirit of the resolutions 
which had been adopted, basing the application for sepa- 
ration upon the local situation and the grievances neces- 
sarily resulting therefrom, and dwelling but briefly and 
without exaggeration upon them in detail. The address 
to the people, somewhat warmer in tone, was evidently in- 
tended to impress upon them a deeper sense of injury than 
the people themselves had yet entertained. It indicates 
that the members of the convention were conscious of be- 



Samuel McDowell, who was sick at the time. The journal kept by Rev. 
Samuel Houston, who was a private in that regiment, clearly shows that 
Col. McDowell commanded his own regiment in thatengagement,which 
is confirmed by McDowell's letter concerning the battle, published in 
the " Virginia Slate Papers." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 59 

iu^ in advance of their constituents in their desire for sep- 
aration, and deemed it necessary to expatiate upon their 
grievances, the extent of which the people might not oth- 
erwise comprehend. It is known tliat this address was 
drawn by James Wilkinson, who was a spectator, though 
not a member, of the convention, and who had the pre- 
ceding fall come to Kentucky from Philadelphia in order 
to engage in commercial pursuits. He was dissatisfied 
with the address to the Assembly as too tame and moder- 
ate. It was by his counsel the convention of August 
was called. That convention was chiefly composed of 
members who sat in the one preceding; but Green and 
Greenup did not have seats in it, and among the new mem- 
bers were Wilkinson, John Coburn and Robert Patter- 
son. McDowell was president and Todd secretary. The 
petition to the Assembly adopted by the convention of 
May was never sent to that body. It was completely ig- 
nored by the convention of August, to which, by the man- 
agement of Wilkinson, it had been referred. In lieu there- 
of, one less simple, abounding in rhetorical flourishes, and 
having an entirely difl:erent tone, of which Wilkinson 
himself was the author, was adopted and forwarded. It 
was less a petition than a demand. The Assembly was 
asked to pass an act " declaring and acknowledging the 
independence of the district ; " expression was given to 
the " persuasion " that the independent and sovereign 
state acknowledged " would as cheerfully be received into 
the continental union on the recommendation of our parent 
state." 

The declaration and acknowledgment of sovereignty 
and independence asked for was not at all to be contin- 
gent upon the admission into the confederation of the 
State sought to be erected. Whether the schemer even 
then contemplated and endeavored to prepare for a sepa- 
ration from the Union as well as from Virginia, which two 
years later he engaged to promote, is not important. If 
80, he had few, if any, confidants, and at the time he was 
not suspected of illicit design ; the large majority of the 
convention, as well as of the masses of the people, were in- 



60 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

dubitably true to the Union. It was arranged that this 
petition should be presented to and be urged upon the 
Assembly by George Muter and ■ Hary Innes.* An- 
other address to the people, more exciting, impassioned 
and exaggerated in expression and tone than the one 
which preceded it, and well calculated to subserve its 
author's design of inflaming the minds of those to whom 
it was directed, was adopted and circulated. This, too, 
was written by the controlling spirit of the convention — 
Wilkinson. The second resolution of this address was an 
argument for, and plainly implied, an assumption by the 
district of that sovereignty and independence which the 
petition to the assembly requested that body to declare 
and acknowledge. The report of the Committee of the 
Whole, into which the convention resolved itself, was 
modeled after the Declaration of Independence. The as- 
sertion made therein, that " The law imposing a tax of 
five shillings per hundred acres, on lands previously sold, 
and directing the payment thereof into the Register's 
office at Richmond, before the patent shall issue, is equally 
subversive of justice as any of the statutes of the British 
Parliament, that impelled the good people to arms," is 
noteworthy as an illustration as well of the animus by 
which it was dictated as of the inflated and exaggerated 
tone of the entire report. 

Whatever may have been thought by the General As- 
sembly of the tone of those papers, the existence of griev- 
ances as serious as they were real, was apparent to all. 
The justice of the request for a separation was promptly 
recognized by the passage of an act in January, 1786, f for 



*The statement made by Marshall and others that Muter was at the 
time Chief Justice of the district is an error. Cyrus Griffin had been 
elected to that position at the session of the General Assembly preceding 
this convention, but refused to accept. While attending the following 
session of that body, Muter was elected Judge of the General Court to 
fill the vacancy occasioned by Griffin's declination. Innes at the time 
was Attorney-General of the district. During the session acts for his 
benefit were passed by the Assembly. 

TMr. Madison, who was a member of the House Committee on Courts 
of Justice, from which the act in question was first reported, was its au- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 61 

the separation and erection of the district into a State of 
the Confederation. Provision was therein made for an 
election in the ensuing August of representatives to a 
fifth convention, to be held at Danville on the fourth Mon- 
day of September, 1786, which, after organization, was to 
determine " whether it be expedient for, and the will of 
the good people of the said district, to be erected into an 
independent State," on terms and conditions as defined in 
the act. If the said convention approved " of the erec- 
tion of the district into an independent State, on the fore- 
going terms and conditions," they were empowered " to 
fix a day posterior to the first day of September, 1787," on 
which the authority of Virginia should " cease and deter- 
mine forever." But the fundamental condition precedent 
was wisely annexed, " That p>rior to the first day of June, 
1787, the United States, in Congress assembled, shall as- 
sent to the erection of the said district into an independ- 
ent State, . . . and shall agree that immediately after 
the day to be fixed as aforesaid, posterior to the first day 
of September, 1787, or at some convenient time future 
thereto, the new State shall be admitted into the Federal 
Union." [Henniug, vol. xii, page 37-40.] Thus, every 
thing was made contingent upon the previous action of 
Congress assenting to the statehood of Kentucky and 
providing for her admission into the Union. And, " in 
order that no period of anarchy " might " happen to the 
good people of the proposed State, the convention to meet 
in September, 1786, was required to take measures for the 
election and assemblage of another convention," ."at some 



thor in the original form. It was amended in the House, and was 
passed by that body January 6, 1786. James Garrard was designated 
as the messenger to inform the Senate of this action, but the duty was 
actually performed by Christopher Greenup. On the next day, Janu- 
ary 7th, the bill was referred to a committee, of whom General Henry 
Lee was one, and John Brown, who had succeeded Colonel William 
Fleming as the Senator from the district which included Kentucky, was 
another. On the 10th, Mr. Brown reported that the committee had, 
"according to order, had the said bill under consideration, and had 
made no amendment thereto." It was then passed by the Senate, and 
the enrolled bill was signed January 16, 1786. 



62 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

time prior to the day fixed for the determination of the au- 
thority of this Commonwealth . . . and posterior to 
the first day of June, 1787, . . . with full power and 
authority to frame and establish a fundamental constitu- 
tion of government for the proposed State, and to declare 
what laws shall he enforced therein until the same shall be 
abrogated or altered " by the authority acting under the 
constitution thus adopted. The act was forwarded to the 
members of Congress from Virginia, who were instructed 
to use their endeavors to secure from Congress the nec- 
essary assent and provision for the admission of Kentucky 
into the confederation. 

It will be seen that this act was not what had been asked 
for, or demanded, in the petition drawn by Wilkinson. 
That petition requested the declaration and recognition 
by Virginia of our independence and sovereignty, leaving 
the state so recognized and declared thereafter to find its 
way into the confederation. The act, on the other hand, 
made every thing contingent upon the previous favorable 
action of Congress, * while the steps required to be taken 
in the district necessitated delay. However vexatious this 
delay and this most wise and prudent condition was to 
Wilkinson, and may have been to others whom he had im- 
bued with his spirit, by the great mass of the people the 
well considered act of Virginia was received with patient 
satisfaction. A general disposition was manifested to 
conform to its provisions. But Wilkinson, who had 
drawn the request for an acknowledgment of sovereignty 
and independence, now urged that the circumstances of 



* In a letter to Washington, Mr. Madison wrote : " The apparent cool- 
ness of the representatives of Kentucky, as to a separation, since these 
terms were defined, indicates that they had some views that will not be 
favored by them. They dislike much to be hung upon the will of Con- 
gress." [Sparks' Washington, vol. 9, page 510.] Four days after the 
passage of the act, John Brown was given leave of absence for the rest 
of the session. "Though he continued a member of the senate, he was 
not at any time present during the session of the fall and winter of 
178()-7, and never again made his appearance in the senate, until about 
the time he was elected to Congress in October, 1787. [See .Tournals of 
Virginia Senate, 1785-G-7.] 



The Spanish Conspiracy, 63 

the district would not admit of delay ; that, though author- 
ity existed to repel invasion by the Indians, there was 
none for hostile excursions within the Indian territory. 
He boldly advocated the immediate declaration and as- 
sumption of independence and sovereignty by Kentucky, 
without compliance with legal formalities, without regard- 
ing the conditions of the act of the assembly, and without 
waiting for the assent of Congress or for any provision for 
admission into the confederation. All that, he argued, 
was matter for future action ; and, in the meantime, the 
exigency was instant. [Marshall, page 242 ; Collins, page 
262.] Wilkinson was active and heated in the promulga- 
tion of his views. He announced himself a candidate for 
the convention, and it was given out in speeches made by 
Wilkinson himself, as well as in those made by the friends 
who were warm and zealous in his behalf, that he would, 
on the first day of the election, at Lexington, address the 
people, in order to persuade them to an immediate separa- 
tion, without regaini to the conditions imposed by the act 
of the assembly. Many were alarmed by those utterances ; 
many who were in favor of the separation itself, yet 
deemed the evils that might be for a time continued by 
awaiting the time designated, and pursuing the course 
pointed out by the general assembly, far less to be dreaded 
than the consequences of this revolutionary course which 
Wilkinson urged. It was determined that his election 
should be opposed and that his heralded speech should be 
answered. The person selected to reply to the speech was 
Humphrey Marshall ; * it is probable that as a candidate 



* Humphrey Marshall was a son of John Marshall and Mary Quisen- 
bury; a nephew of Col. Thomas Marshall, whose daughter Mary he 
married. He was born in Virginia in 1760 ; his father's circumstances 
were narrow, so that his early educational advantages were limited. 
However, he was sent when a boy to the home of his uncle, Thomas 
Marshall, and for a time studied under Scotch tutors with that relative's 
children. Those studies were interrupted by his joining the army. The 
following is the brief record of his military service as it appears upon 
the papers of the land office at Richmond, Va., viz: 

Richmond, December 14, 1782. 

I certify that Humphrey Marshall was a cadet in the state artillery in 



64 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

fpr the convention he also led the opposition to the elec- 
tion of Wilkinson, In the speech made hy the latter in 
Lexington a number of the laws of Virginia were bitterly 
denounced as unjust and oppressive, and it was represented 
that the people of the mother commonwealth, being them- 
selves secure, were indifierent to the dangers experienced 
and to the sufferings endured by their sons and brethren 
in Kentucky. The perils by which they were surrounded 
were grossly exaggerated, as the means most likely to be 
successful in inciting .the people to precipitate and illegal 
action. They were urged to immediately cut loose from 
Virginia, and at once erect themselves into an independent 
and sovereign state, without complying with the condi- 
tions of the act which provided for the election they were 
about to hold, without obtaining the assent of Congress, 
and without the passage of any act for admission into the 
confederation. The thoroughly revolutionary principle 
was asserted and maintained, that the right proposed to 
be exerted did not proceed from- the legislation of the 
state, nor was it dependent thereon, but was inherent in 
the people of the district, and could be exercised at their 
discretion. 

These arguments were refuted and this position was 
vigorously assailed by his young antagonist, whose strong 
natural powers, in spite of the deficiency in his early ad- 
vantages, fully equipped him for such a debate. Taking 
no issue with Wilkinson as to the propriety and even ne- 



1777 ; made an officer in the same regiment in 1778 ; a captain L. 1, 
December 18, 1779 ; and that he is now a supernumerary. 

George Mutee, Col. S. G. R. 
Benjamin Harrison. 

Warrant for 4000 acres issued to Humphrey Marshall, December 19, 
1782. 

He was a purchaser at the second sale of lots in Lexington, in 1783. 
But he was certainly in Kentucky before that time ; probably settling 
in the district the year before, and becoming a deputy under his uncle, 
Col. Marshall, in the surveyor's office of Fayette county. In the mean- 
time he had studied law, of which profession he became an able and 
distinguished member. He returned to Virginia to marry in 1784. At 
the time of his first collision with Wilkinson he was twenty-six years 
old. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 65 

cessity of a separation, the time when this should take 
place, and whether independence and sovereignty should 
be assumed as an inherent right or be regulated by the law 
of the parent State, became the particular subjects of con- 
troversy. It was shown that the aggressions of the In- 
dians were growing less frequent and the magnitude of 
the grievance from that source was decreasing, while the 
constant influx of population into the district was daily 
adding to its means and facilities for defense. And much 
stress was laid upon the impropriety and dangerous ten- 
dency of the disregard for law which would be manifested 
by the course advocated by Wilkinson, as well as upon the 
pernicious consequences of the revolutionary principle 
upon which it was founded. Unable to maintain the posi- 
tion he had assumed, Wilkinson then resorted to the subter- 
fuge of contending that the expression in the law, '•^pos- 
terior to the 1st of September, 1787," which regulated 
the time of the separation, meant before and not after that 
date. In the rejoinder, his young antagonist placed the 
orator between the horns of a disagreeable dilemma: 
"Either he did not know the meaning of the word ^pos- 
terior' or he meant to impose upon his audience. In 
the one case he was unfit to guide ; in the other unsafe to 
follow." [Marshall, page 243.] The friends of Wilkinson 
prevented the opening of the polls until late in the day; 
and, when it was found that he received but few votes, 
while the bulk of those cast were bestowed upon his oppo- 
nent, they had the polls soon closed for the day. Those 
of the opposition who were thus disappointed in their 
purpose to vote on the first day of the election, proclaimed 
their intention to return and vote on the last day. (The 
election lasted five days.) Wilkinson's friends were driven to 
resort to a trick to secure his election. The militia ofiicers, 
who were in his interest, were induced to order musters on 
the last day of the election in those parts of the county 
unfavorable to him. To these musters the people were 
summoned, and many of his opponents who attended thus 
lost their votes, while his friends disregarded the summons 
5 



66 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

and voted. In those portions of the county favorable to 
him, no musters were ordered, and the activity of his 
friends obtaining the polling of a full vote, his election and 
that of his associates on the ticket was secured.* [Mar- 
shall, page 244.] 

* Wilkinson never forgave this opposition and exposure by Hum- 
phrey Marshall. Two years later an attempt was made by Jordan Har- 
ris to assassinate Marshall, upon the absurd failure of which a series of 
vituperative and scurrilous assaults were made upon Marshall in the 
Lexington Gazette, over the signature of Harris. These were written 
for Harris (who seems to have been as weak as he was violent) by a 
protege of Wilkinson, and were paid for by him. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 67 



CHAPTER V. 

The Expeditions of Clark and Logan in the fall of 1786 — The 
Humiliating Failure of Clark's Expedition and its Cause — 
His Conduct at Vincennes after the Expedition had been 
Abandoned — Logan in no way Connected Therewith — The Il- 
licit Enterprise of Green, and Clark's Connection — The Gov- 
orner Informed by Letters from Danville — Clark Censured — 
The Men who were Responsible — The Deceit Practiced by 
Brown and Innes in 1806, Imitated by Colonel J. M. Brown 
IN 1890. 

It has been stated that the militia who organized under 
the leadership of George Rogers Clark, in the fall of 1786, 
for an expedition against the hostile Indians of the 
"Wabash, rendezvoused at Clarksville,* Indiana, where 
more than a thousand men assembled early' in September. 
But the number not being deemed sufficient to accomplish 
all the objects of the expedition, a council of war was 
held on the 13th of September, of the field officers of the 
several counties, which was presided over by Benjamin 
Logan, and at which it was determined that a field officer 
from each county should return, get together all the de- 
serters and delinquents and collect the rest of the militia 
as soon as possible, and march with them to rejoin Clark 
at Vincennes. General Logan, Colonel Levi Todd, Colo- 
nel Bobert Patterson and several others were selected to 
execute this order. The next day, however, Clark ad- 
dressed to General Logan a written order directing him to 
assemble the militia as decided by the council of the field 
officers, and to impress supplies, etc. ; but, instead of re- 



*Virginia had given to Clark and his officers and men who captured 
Kaskaskia and Vincennes (1778-9) 200,000 acres of land in one body- 
lying along the Ohio river, in Indiana, as bounty for their services in 
that campaign. In the midst of this grant, the town of Clarksville was 
incorporated and established. It was situated opposite the Falls, at a 
point between the present cities of New Albany and JefiersonviUe. 



68 The Spanish Conspiraoj. 

joining liim, to march at once to surprise the Indians of 
the Mad River towns in Ohio, with whom Clark had as- 
sisted in negotiating a treaty in the preceding January (at 
the mouth of the Miami), but who were charged with vio- 
lating that treaty. Logan, Todd, Patterson and the others 
deputed for the purpose left Clark immediately, and pro- 
ceeded Avith great celerity to execute his commands. Lo- 
gan quickly collected his men, crossed the Ohio at Mays- 
ville, and, marching with equal rapidity and secrecy, would 
have surprised a large body of those Indians in their prin- 
cipal town, had it not been for the alarm given them by a 
deserter. As it was, a number of warriors were killed, 
man}^ prisoners were captured,''' and the Indian country 
was swept with fire. The completely successful expedition 
returned in twenty days. 

While Logan was thus performing the duty to which he 
had been assigned, Clark marched to Vincennes. There 
a delay of nine chxys ensued while awaiting the arrival of 
provisions and stores which liad been shipped from the 
Falls. When these arrived, the larger part had been 
spoiled. It is said that Clark opposed this delay, urging 
a forced march against the Indians, but was overruled by 
his officers, some of whom have been charged with excit- 
ing the men to mutiny. In spite of the considerable dis- 
afi'eetion which was at once manifested, the march towards 
the Indian country was resumed, on short rations, until, 
after two or three days of discontent, nearly one-third of 
his men refused to proceed further, and, led by their offi- 
cers, determined to return to Vincennes. iS'otwithstanding 
this defection, the force remaining with Clark numbered 
more than six hundred gallant men, a larger and better 
equipped body than any of those with which he had in 
former and better days spread desolation throughout the 
Indian country, and made his name a terror to the savage 
heart. It was large enough, had other conditions been 
favorable, to have accomplished the object sought. But 

■•'■Among the prisoners taken were the wives of Mokintha, whom Mc- 
Gary had murdered, and his son, who toolv the name of Logan, became 
a friend of the whites, and was murdered by Indians in Illinois, in 1812. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 69 

mutual confidence between the men and their chief no 
longer existed. After a hurried and tumultuous council, 
the order for the return was given; the two parts of the 
army uniting in the evening marched together back to 
Vincennes, which they reached on the 8th of October. It 
has pleased the undiscriminating eulogists of a gallant man 
to place the entire responsibility for this most mortifying 
of failures upon the officers of General Clark, who are 
alleged to have been his enemies and to have envied his 
fame. Those officers have been charged with sowing the 
seeds of dissatisfaction among the men, by falsely repre- 
senting Clark to have been unfit for command ; and con- 
temporary chroniclers relate as an instance of the alleged 
calumnies set afloat by those jealous officers the report 
which was current, that Clark had sent a flag of truce to 
an Indian town, offering them the choice of peace or war, 
and had thus destroyed the chance of a surprise, which 
was of such immense importance in savage warfare. But 
care has always been taken not to name those enemies, and 
not to state any causes they had for enmity. 

At this distance the unbiased reader will find it easier 
to believe, that the charges made by those officers were 
true, and that Clark was unfit to lead, than that three hun- 
dred Kentuckians, who had never before turned their 
backs upon a foe, availed themselves of lying pretexts to 
abandon a commander of such brilliant prestige, and to 
turn back from an expedition in which they had volun- 
tarily embarked. After all, the truth would be but a mel- 
ancholy repetition of the story which families all over the 
world lament to relate of kinsmen, whose brilliant promise 
and achievements in youth served to render the more 
gloomy the clouds and darkness in which the sun of their 
lives went down. That truth is, that the life of exposure 
to which Clark had been subjected had tempted him to 
resort to stimulants to sustain his strength and energy; 
that the inducements to this dangerous indulgence had 
increased during years of comparative idleness, which to 
80 vaulting and proud a spirit was well nigh insupport- 
able ; and that the pernicious habit had grown upon him 



70 The Spanish Conspiranj. 

until it had become his master. A slave to his own pas- 
sions and appetites, the power to control which he had 
lost, he had become unfitted to guide or command others. 
By frequent exhibitions of himself in an intoxicated con- 
dition and with clouded mind, in his camp and to his men, 
he had at once forfeited their confidence and their respect, 
and their unwillingness to trust themselves to his direction' 
and to march to battle under his orders, was as natural 
as it was inevitable. 

Upon returning to Vincennes a council of field oflicers 
sanctioned, so far as such a body could give sanction to 
such a measure, Clark's determination to maintain a gar- 
rison at Vincennes, which was in the heart of the territory 
Virginia had years before ceded to the United States, and 
over which Virginia had neither control nor jurisdiction. 
If the strategic value of this movement as a measure for 
the protection of Kentucky against the Indians was open 
to question, there could be none that Virginia herself had 
no power to authorize it without the consent of the Con- 
gress, nor of the impropriety, to use no stronger phrase, of 
Clark's proceeding therein, as a sort of private enterprise, 
without the assent of Congress or the direction of his 
state. ^Nevertheless, measures were taken to recruit a gar- 
rison of 250 men under Colonel John Holder, and a com- 
pany of artillery to be commanded by Captain Valentine 
Thomas Dalton, and of this corps General Clark " assumed 
the supreme direction." If the organization of this force 
resembles the banding together of the " free companies," 
which terrorized Europe in the middle ages, those placed 
at its head had as little respect for private right as that 
exhibited by the most predatory of the Condottierri. 
Clark commenced at once to levy recruits, appoint officers, 
and impress provisions, without the pretense even of legal 
warrant, and without the shadow of any other authority 
than that which proceeded from, himself. "^ 

But ere long he went further than the levying of this 
irregular force and the illegal and unauthorized seizure of 



* Secret Journals of Congress, LV., page 310. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 71 

private property for their sustenance. His once clear 
and vigorous mind had become inflamed by indul- 
gence and made desperate by the chagrin of failure. His 
rage found a vent upon the unoffending Spanish mer- 
chants who had established themselves as traders at Vin- 
cennes, Kaskaskia, and at other points in Hlinois. Un- 
der his orders their property was seized and confiscated ; 
not merely that which could be used for military purposes, 
but furs, tafty, honey, various descriptions of dry goods, 
etc., which were sold. Clark asserted that the proceeds of 
the sales were used to pay the men whom he recruited. 
But there was evidence which was generally believed at 
the time, and which there was only too much reason to be- 
lieve, that a large part was appropriated to private pur- 
poses. Boats coming from Vincennes to New Orleans 
were seized; one was robbed of property belonging to 
Spaniards to the amount of $10,000 — in retaliation, as was 
alleged.* Universal complaint of the lawless depredations 
of Clark's men went up from the French residents at 
Yincennes and Kaskaskia. In their proclivities for plun- 
der they were a mere banditti, but little better than In- 
dans.f These robberies, for as such they were branded at 
the time and really were, occurred not only after Clark's 
expedition against the Wabash Indians had been defi- 
nitely abandoned, and they had agreed to attend a Grand 
Council at Vincennes, in the ensuing April, to make a 
treaty of peace and friendship, but also after the return of 
Logan from his successful expedition against the Shaw- 
anese, on the Mad river. From a purely military stand- 
point, it appears from Logan's letter to the governor, that 
he regarded the garrisoning of Vincennes as a " wise and 
prudent" measure. But he had refused Clark's request 
to convene a board of field officers to sanction the seizure 
of supplies to sustain a garrison outside the limits of the 
district and beyond the jurisdiction of Virginia.^ He was 
in no way responsible for nor connected with Clark's 

* St. Clair Papers, Vol. II, page 21. 

t Ibid., page 22. 

t Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, 202. 



72 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

mortifying failure. And the condemnation brought upon 
Clark by his subsequent conduct at A'^incennes never cast 
its shadow upon the fair fame of Logan. N"or had that 
gallant man any participation in the designs far other than 
the defense of Kentucky against the Wabash Indians, 
which contemporary evidence too clearly establishes, were 
entertained by the mind of Clark — unhinged by excess 
and rendered desperate by mortification. There is an un- 
happy concurrence of evidence that Vincennes was to 
have been used as the base from which the attack, 
which Clark meditated, upon St. Louis and the Kat- 
chez was to have been made; and that these seizures of 
the property of Spanish subjects were intended to precip- 
itate a collision with that haughty power.* 



* Marshall (Vol. 1, page 109) intimates that Wilkinson was jealous of 
Clark, and rejoiced over his failure. " General Wilkinson," (says the 
historian) " who was at the Falls of the Ohio, wrote to a friend in Fay- 
ette ' that the sun of General Clark's military glory had set, never more 
to rise.' There was much meaning in this sentence, which those who 
had fathomed Wilkinson knew how to interpret." Without attributing 
to Wilkinson the secret ambition of supplanting Clark, this prediction 
might very naturally have been founded on what he knew of Clark's 
habits and of his loss of public confidence thereby. The subjoined is 
an extract from a letter written at the time by some one in Kentucky to 
a friend in Philadelphia. The extract was forwarded from Philadelphia 
to the Governor of Virginia, but at what time it was received by that 
functionary does not appear, nor is the name of the writer given. All 
the circumstances, however, point unerringly to Wilkinson as the au- 
thor. The following is a copy of the extract as it is given in the Virginia 
State Papers, viz : 

[Extracted from a Letter from a gentleman in Kentucky to his 
friend in Philadelphia, December 12, 1786.] 

" Clark is playing Hell. He is raising a Regiment of his own, and 
has 140 men stationed at Opost, already now under the command of 
Dalton. Seized on a Spanish Boat with 20,000 Dollars, or rather seized 
three stores at Opost worth this sum, and the Boat which brought them 
up. J. R. Jones, Commissary General, gets a large share of the plun- 
der, and has his family at Opost. Piatt comes in for snacks. He brought 
the Baggage and a thousand pounds of small furs to the Falls the day I 

left it. Plunder-all means to go to Congress to get the Regiment 

put upon the establishment. He is the 3rd Captain. The taxes, he 
tells his associates, are necessary to bear his expenses ; but he don't re- 
turn. I laid a plan to get the whole seized and secured for the own- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 73 

The suggestions of Mr. Jay in the fall of 1786, (referred 
to on a former page), that Congress would rescind its in- 
structions and permit him to propose to the Spanish a 
treaty for twenty-five years, during which time the United 
States would agree to forbear their right to the navigation 
of the Mississippi below their own boundaries, were made 
to Congress while that body was in secret session. JSTot- 
withstanding this fact, the proceedings thereon soon be- 
came partially known ; and by the artful and designing 
these suggestions of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
were easily magnified into an actual treaty to the same 
efl:'ect. That the seizure of the property of Spanish mer- 
chants by Clark was not simply a measure to obtain nec- 
essaries for his irregular troops, but was directly prompted 
by exaggerated rumors concerning Mr. Jay's suggestions 
to Congress, and was absolutely designed as a hostile move- 
ment against Spain, can scarcely be doubted. 

On the 4th of December, 1786, Thomas Green, then a 
citizen of Louisville, wrote to the Governor of Georgia, 
(which State claimed a western boundary extending to the 
Mississippi and embracing a part of the territory occupied 
and held by Spain above the 31st degree of latitude) — 
declaring the public sentiment to be that the treaty with 
Spain was " unjust, cruel and oppressive ;" that it would 
"subjugate" the western people to a "worse slavery" 
than any to which Great Britain had ever presumed to 
subject the people of any part of her dominions ; that the 
minds of the people of Kentucky were " very much exas- 
perated against both Spaniards and Congress;'' that the 



ers, and BuUett and Anderson will execute it. Clark is eternally drunk, 
and yet full of design. I told him he would be hanged. He laughed 
and said he could take refuge among the Indians. A stroke is medi- 
tated against St. Louis and the Natchez." 

Similar information was written by a gentleman in North Carolina 
to a member of Congress from that State. These statements might be 
disregarded, as not vouched for by responsible names, were they not 
unfortunately fully sustained by statements made under oath and re- 
duced to writing by Christopher Greenup, as well as by the statements 
formally made to the Governor by sixteen of the most prominent men 
then in Kentucky. 



74 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Spanish property at Vincermes and in the Illinois had been 
seized by the troops pf Clark " in retaliation for the 
many offenses" of Spaniards; that General Clark, "to- 
gether with many other gentlemen of merit," had 
"engaged to raise troops sufficient" and to "go with 
me to the !N"atchez to take possession," provided the Gov- 
ernor of Georgia would give them countenance and the 
lands claimed by that State ; that General Clark and the 
others would be " ready to proceed down the river on the 
shortest notice," and were merely awaiting a favorable 
answer to set out; and for further particulars referred him 
to the bearer, William "Wells.* To a committee appointed 
at Danville (evidently by members of the convention who 
were there) to receive from him such information as he 
might choose to give, Clark afterwards admitted the seizure 
of the property of the Spanish traders, but alleged that it 
was for the sole purpose of subsisting the troops he had 
enlisted at Vincennes without authority ; asserted that he 
never saw the letter of Thomas Green, had no purpose to 
molest the Spaniards at Natchez ; and understood Green's 
object to be to establish a settlement at or near the mouth 
of the Yazoo, under the authority of the State of Georgia. 
The committee reported this as General Clark's statement, 
but, as no settlement could have been made at the mouth 
of the Yazoo at that time, under the authority of the State 
of Georgia, without certain hostilities with the Spanish, 
they evidently attached but little value to his assertion of 
pacific intent, which was contradicted by his every act. 
It was but natural for them to believe, and the unbiased 
reader will find it difficult not to believe with them, that 
General Clark knew the contents of Green's letter, when 
they had the evidence before them that he had given a 
written bond to contribute an equal amount with the 
writer thereof to pay Wells for his trouble in conveying 
that letter to Georgia.f 



*See Appendix A for letter in full. 

tLouisviLLE, December 4, 1786. 
Jefferson County, ss. 
Whereas, William Wells is now employed by Colonel Thomas 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 75 

About the same time that Green's letter was dispatclied 
to the Governor of Georgia copies of an inflammatory and 
incendiary production, apparently by the same author, was 
circulated with an air of secrecy among many of the set- 
tlements in the west, and particularly in Sevier's in- 
surrectionary would-be State of Frankland — Tennessee — 
whence one of them was forwarded to the Governor ot 
Virginia. It branded the alleged treaty with Spain as a 
"grievance not to be borne;" that the acts which drove 
the colonies into the Revolution " were not so barefaced 
and intolerable;" that to subject their shipments down 
the river beyond our own territory to the Spanish laws 
was "an insult to our understanding;" that "twenty 
thousand troops could be raised west of the Allegheny and 
Apalachian mountains " to resist ; that " we have taken 
all the goods belonging to the Spanish merchants at Vin- 
cennes and the Illinois;" that "preparations are now 
making here (Louisville) to drive the Spaniards from their 
settlements at the mouth of the Mississippi; " that in case 
the hostile expedition against Louisiana " was not coun- 
tenanced," and those engaged therein " succored (if need 
be) by the United States," " our allegiance ivill be thrown off, 
and some other power applied to. Great Britain stands 
ready, with open arms, to receive and support us. They 
have already offered to open their resources for our sup- 
plies." * "While it is not probable that the sentiments of 
the writer or writers of those letters were generally shared 



Green and others to go to Augusta, in the State of Georgia, on public 
business, and it being uncertain whether he will be paid for his jour- 
ney out of the public treasury : should he not be, on his return, we, 
the subscribers, do jointly and severally, for value received, promise to 
pay him, on demand, the several sums that are affixed to our names, as 
witness our hands : 



Thomas Green, . . . 


. £10 00 


James Huling, . . 


. £1 00 


John Williams, . . . 


1 00 


David Morgan, . . 


. 1 00 


George R. Clark, . . 


. 10 00 


John Montgomery, . 


. ] 00 


Lawrence Muse, . . 


3 00 


Ebenezer S. Piatt, . 


. 1 00 


Richard Brashears, 


6 00 


Robert Elliott, . . 


10 


James Patton, . . . 


3 00 


Thomas Stribling, 


. 1 00 




Secret Journal of Congress, 


IV, 318. 


*See Appendix B. 









76 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

or countenanced by the people in the west, it would be 
idle to deny that among them were many disappointed and 
turbulent adventurers, who were disaffected towards Vir- 
ginia as well as towards Congress, who did indorse these 
views, who were eager to join in the proposed movement, 
or in any other which might have afforded to their restless 
ambitions occupation and a promise of wealth, and who 
fully expected to be led by Clark. 

"When the time arrived for the meeting of the conven- 
tion which had been authorized by the Virginia Assembly 
to be held at Danville, in September, 1786, and to which 
"Wilkinson had been elected under the circumstances 
which have been stated, it was found that so many of the 
members were absent on the expeditions of Clark and of 
Logan against the Indians of the Wabash and of Mad 
river, that a quorum could not be assembled. To keep 
the body alive those present met and adjourned from day 
to day until January, when a quorum at last attended 
which proceeded to business. A number of the 
members were in Danville in December, when Wells 
passed through and exhibited Thomas Green's letter to 
the Governor of Georgia, as well as other papers ; besides 
the members a number of gentlemen were in Danville, 
then the seat of the district court, on legal business. 
Copies were made of the papers exhibited by AVells, which 
were sent to the Governor of Virginia inclosed with the 
subjoined letter, by the gentlemen whose names are at- 
tached. Some of those gentlemen were members of the 
convention. Some resided in Danville and others prac- 
ticed law. Others were there on business. 'No other 
equal number of men in the west at that time were of 
greater prominence or possessed greater influence.* 

Danville, December 22, 1786. 
To His Excellency the Governor of Virginia: 

Sir — Whatever general impropriety there may be in a few private 
individuals addressing your Excellency, on subjects of public nature, 
we can not resist those impulses of duty and aflection which prompt us 



*Colonel Thomas Marshall and John ]5rown were members of the 
convention of 1786. 



The Spanish Conspiracij. 77 

to lay before the Honorable Board at which you preside, a state of cer- 
tain unwarrantable transactions, which we are apprehensive may, 
without the reasonable interposition of the legislature, deeply affect 
the dignity, honor and interest of the Commonwealth. 

The testimonials which accompany this, will give your Excellency a 
general idea of the outrage which has been committed at Post St. Vin- 
cennes, of the illicit views of Mr. Green and his accomplices, and the 
negotiation, which has taken place, between General Clark and the 
Wabash Indians. 

We beg leave to add, that we have reason to believe, property has 
been plundered to a very considerable amount, and that it has been 
generally appropriated to private purposes. 

We are fearful that Green will find no difficulty in levying auxillia- 
ries in the titular State of Frankland, and the settlements on Cumber- 
land ; in the meantime, attempts are daily practiced to augment the ban- 
ditti at St. Vincennes, by delusive promises of lands, bounty and cloth- 
ing from the officers appointed by General Clark. 

We beg leave to suggest, to the serious consideration of your Excel- 
lency, the necessity of carrying into effect, the treaty pi'oposed in 
April ; for we fear, that the savages when assembled, if they are not 
amused by a treaty, or kept in awe by a military force at St. Vincennes, 
will form combinations among themselves, hostile to this country, and 
before they disperse, may turn their arms against our scattered settle- 
ments, in such force as to overwhelm them. 

To the superior wisdom and the paternal care of the heads of the 
Commonwealth, we take the liberty of submitting, the matters, herein as 
mentioned, in full confidence, that every necessary measure, will be 
immediately adopted, and have the honor to be with every sentiment 
of respect, your Excellency's most obedient, 

JAMES WILKINSON. HARY INNES. 

BEN.I. POPE. EDMUND LYNE. 

J. BROWN. RICHARD C. ANDERSON. 

CALEB WALLACE. RICHARD TAYLOR. 

JOHN CRAIG. JAMES GARRARD. 

CHRISTO. GREENUP. CHARLES EWING. 

T. MARSHALL. JOHN LOGAN. 

GEORGE MUTER. JOHN EDWARDS. 

This letter was accompanied by an affidavit, taken be- 
fore Christopher Greenup and given by one ITeeves, prov- 
ing the manner of the seizure of the property in question, 
and the subsequent sale of many of the articles. It is 
noteworthy that it was signed by Colonel Richard C. An- 
derson, who shortly after married General Clark's sister; 
by Colonel Richard Taylor, the father of the president ; 
and by Benjamin Pope, who were neighbors of, and 



78 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

friendly to, Clark, who had opportunities of knowing the 
facts in the case, and who would not have put their names 
to such a statement without indubitable evidence of its 
truth. At the same time another letter was written to 
Governor Randolph, which asserted that the treaty at the 
mouth of the Miami had efiected no " salutary purpose," 
and attributed the failure to the alleged ancient prejudices 
entertained against all Virginians by General Richard 
Butler and Parsons, two of the commissioners ; implored 
the governor that, in case any treaty should be made with 
the Indians of the "Wabash, in pursuance of the arrange- 
ment proposed by Clark, he would exert his influence to 
have the commissioners appointed from Kentucky, and 
recommending General James "Wilkinson, Colonel Richard 
Clough Anderson and Isaac Shelby as " persons well quali- 
fied for the purpose and against whom no exception can 
be taken ; " which recommendation was immediately fol- 
lowed by this paragraph : " We lament that the unfortunate 
habits to which General Clark is addicted, obliges us to ob- 
serve that we consider him utterly unqualified for business 
of any kind:' This letter was signed by T. Marshall, Ed- 
mund Lyne, Richard Taylor, J. Brown, Hary Innes, 
George Muter, Caleb Wallace, John Craig, Benj. Pope 
and Charles Ewing. * These letters show why it was, and 
to whose representations it was due, that General Clark 
never thereafter had any public employment from Vir- 
ginia. 

On the' receipt of those letters and papers, the state 
council of Virginia, on the 28th of February, 1787, ad- 
vised that the letters and pajjers be transmitted to the 
Virginia delegates in Congress, to be laid before that 
body ; that General Clark be notified of the disavowal of 
his acts and authority in the enlisting of troops at Vin- 
cennes ; that the executive declare their displeasure at his 
conduct in seizing the property of Spanish merchants, and 

* A copy of the entire letter from the original among the Virginia 
archives -v, as made by Wm. Wirt Henry and forwarded to the writer at 
his request. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 79 

that it should be disclaimed in a special proclamation; 
that a copy of the order of the council be sent to the dele- 
gates in Congress, in order that the Spanish minister 
might be made acquainted with their action ; and that the 
" attorney -general be consulted on the documents afore- 
said, and be requested to take himself, or call upon the 
attorney-general of Kentucky, as the case may require, to 
take such steps as may subject to punishment all persons 
guilty in the premises." Thereupon Governor Edmund 
Randolph (who had succeeded Patrick Henry) issued his 
proclamation in accordance with this advice. * 

Mr. Madison, on the part of the Virginia delegation in 
Congress, laid before that body this action of the Execu- 
tive with the accompanying papers, on the 28th of March, 
1787.t The next day the delegation made the same com- 



* The following copy of the original manuscript in the executive office 
at Richmond, Va., was obtained by the writer through the courtesy of 
Mr. Wm. Wirt Henry, viz : 

Virginia, to-wit : * 

By his Excellency Edmund Randolph, Esquire, Governor of tub 
Commonwealth. 

A Proclamation. 

Whereas, it has been represented to the Executive that George Rogers 
Clark, Esquire, after having under the colour of an authority wrong- 
fully supposed to be derived from them, recruited a number of men for 
the support of the post of St. Vincennes, hath moreover seized the 
property of certain subjects of his Catholic majesty to a considerable 
amount. 

In order therefore that the honor of this Commonwealth may not sus- 
tain an injury from a belief that the act above mentioned has in any 
manner received the public sanction, I do hereby declare, with the ad- 
vice of the Council of the State, that the said violence was unknown to 
the Executive until a few days past, and is now solemnly disavowed, 
and that the attorney-general has been instructed to take every step 
allowed by law for bringing to punishment all persons who may be cul- 
pable in the premises. 

Given under my hand and the seal of the Commonwealth this twenty- 
eighth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven 
hundred and eighty-seven. 

[Seal.] Signed : Edm. Randolph. 

tin his note of the course of the delegation in placing the action of 
General Randolph before Congress, Mr. Madison referred to the " in- 



80 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

munication to Don Gardoqui, the Spanish minister.* On 
the 24th of April following, General Henry Knox, the 
Secretary of War, was directed by Congress to take im- 
mediate and efficient measures " for dispossessing a body 



cendiary efforts on foot in the western country against the Spaniards." 
[Madison Papers, Vol. L., page 598.] 

*In the Madison Papers there is an interesting account of this inter- 
view between the Virginia delegation, at which, Mr. Madison states, " a 
free conversation" was had. The Delegates endeavored to impress the 
minister with the opinion that the " concerted occlusion " of the Mis- 
sissippi would produce in the western people an " unfriendly temper," 
"both against Spain and the United States," Clark's conduct being cited 
as an illustration; and that this would probably have the efiecfof 
throwing them into the arms of Great Britain." Numerous arguments 
were urged upon the minister why it was against the interest of Spain, 
as well as of the United States, that the navigation of the Mississippi 
should be closed to the western people. In response, Gardoqui affirmed 
that "Spain would never accede to the claim of the United States to 
navigate that river," and urged that, "as a result" of what the Dele- 
gates had said, " Congress could enter into no treaty at all." " He inti- 
mated," says Mr. Madison, " with a jocular air, the possibility of the west- 
ern people becoming Spanish subjects ; and, with a serious one, that 
such an idea had been brought forward to the King of Spain by some 
person connected with the western country, but that his majesty's dignity 
and character could never countenance it." It will be observed that this was 
prior to the instructions given by the Spanish Court to Gardoqui, as the 
result of Wilkinson's intrigue with Miro, to do all in his power to promote 
the severance of the west from the Union ; and that, while apprising 
the Virginia Delegates that such an idea had been " brought forward to 
the King of Spain by some person connected with the western country," 
the minister repudiated the thought as one dishonorable to his sov- 
ereign. Yet it is upon Mr. Madison's account of this interview, and 
upon his account of a conversation of a similar tenor between the min- 
ister and Mr. Bingham and himself, that Colonel John Mason Brown 
bases his assertion, that Gardoqui " had quite clearly broached a propo- 
sition that Kentucky should be abandoned to Spain ;" and that "both 
Madison and Monroe had conversations of similar import with Gar- 
doqui," to the conference between the Spanish minister and John 
Brown, in which Gardoqui, as stated by Colonel Brown, " suggested that 
the western country should secede from the Union and put itself under 
the sovereignty of Spain." [Frankfort Centennial Address, page 14.] 
Colonel Brown refers to the pages in the Madison Papers, which con- 
tain the accounts of those interviews, but, as is his custom when 
making erroneous statements, he is careful not to quote Mr. Madison's 
language, which does not justify Colonel Brown's version. [IMadison 
Papers, Vol. II., pages 590 to 594, and 599 to 602.] 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 81 

of men who liad, in a lawless and unauthorized manner, 
taken possession of Post Vincennes in defiance of the pro- 
clamation and authority of the United States."* 

The action of the sixteen conspicuous Kentuckians who 
addressed the Governor of Virginia on the subject of 
Clark's conduct, which was as proper as it was prompt; 
the eminently wise advice of the Executive Council, in con- 
sonance with the wishes and suggestions of the Kentuck- 
ians ; the moderate action of Governor Randolph; and 
the decisive steps of Congress in consequence of the in- 
formation they had imparted and of this advice and ac- 
tion, fortunately prevented the precipitation of hostilities 
in which the United States would have been confronted 
by the combined armies of France and Spain, bound to- 
gether by a family compact. 

In February of 1787, during the absence of General 
Logan in Virginia, f a band of Indians from Chickamauga 
perpetrated several murders in Lincoln county, among 
them that of a man named Luttrell. Colonel John Logan, 
(a younger brother of General Logan) who was second in 
command in Lincoln, hastily gathered a considerable 
party, struck the trail of the murderers, followed it into 
Tennessee, captured the horses that had been stolen, and 
slew a number of the depredators. He then struck the 
trail of another band of Indians, followed it into the 
Cherokee country, killed seven of the Indians and wounded 
others, and captured their horses and a large lot of game 
and furs. The last mentioned band was a party of Chero- 
kees returning to their homes from a hunting expedition, 
who claimed to be peaceful, and who were protected by 
the treaty of Hopewell, which had been made with that 



*0n the 8th of the same month, Mr. Madison wrote to Governor 
Randolph, suggesting, if it could be done under no other provision, that 
Clark should be proceeded against under the " act of the last session 
(of the Virginia Assembly) concerning treason and other offenses com- 
mitted without the Commonwealth." [Madison Papers, Vol. II., page 
630.] 

t He had gone to Richmond to settle the accounts of his expedition 
against the Mad river Shawanese. 
6 



82 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tribe. The attack upon them was asserted to have been a 
mistake or accident ; and then was palliated on the ground 
that two of the horses captured from them had been 
stolen in Lincoln county not long before, one of which 
belonged to Hary Innes. [^Letters of Ben. Logan., Hary 
Injies, Arthur Campbell, and Joseph llartin, in Virginia State 
Papers.^ The greatest excitement at once spread through- 
out the Indian country. Retaliations by the Indians of 
course followed. In fact a general outbreak, not only by 
the Cherokees, but by other warlike tribes of the south- 
ern Indians, was with the utmost difficulty prevented. 
About the same time other forays were made upon Ohio 
and Indiana savages, by Robert Todd, Colonel Oldham 
and others, and these northern Indians also were in- 
cluded in treaties recently concluded. Colonel Joseph 
Martin, the Indian agent in Tennessee, Colonel Arthur 
Campbell, who commanded the militia in South-western 
Virginia, and the agents elsewhere, laid the complaints of 
the Cherokees and other Indians before Governor Randolph, 
who, in consequence, addressed a letter to Hary Innes, 
directing him as the attorney-general of the district, " to 
institute the proper legal inquiries for indicating the in- 
fractions of the peace " by " the late hostilities committed 
against the Indians," — meaning thereby the raids of Col. 
John Logan, Robert Todd, and other similar unauthorized 
expeditions of recent occurrence. * This letter, however 
found Mr. Innes in a very difterent state of mind from that 
in which he had joined in the protests against the illicit 
schemes of Green and the violent conduct of Clark at 



* The following is the letter in full, viz : 

" Richmond, May 1, 1787. 

Sir : — We have reason to believe that the late hostilities committed 
on the Indians, have caused their resentments. It is the dutj'- of gov- 
ernment to prevent and punish, if possible, all unjust violences. I 
beg leave, therefore, to urge you to institute the proper legal inquiries 
for indicating the infractions of the peace. 

I am, sir, your most obedient servant, 



Mr. Hary Innes, 

Attorney- General, Kentucky. 



Edm. Randolph. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 83 

Vincenues. Certainly he had not up to that time publicly 
advocated, and it may well be doubted if he had even 
contemplated, the schemes which his response to Governor 
Randolph's communication shows that he meditated when 
that response was made. That response was in many 
ways remarkable, but in nothing more than as a revelation 
of the motives by which Mr. Innes, holding office under 
Virginia, was animated in the transactions of the near 
future. By pleading their vagueness, he evaded compli- 
ance with the directions of the governor. 

For the information of that functionary he enumerated 
the several minor raids to which he knew the governor's 
letter referred. The situation was summed up by the as- 
sertion that " The Indians have been very troublesome on 
our frontiers, and still continue to molest us." This was 
stated to prepare tbe way for and to justify this: "From 
which circumstance I am decidedly of opinion that 
this western country ivill, in a few years, Revolt from the 
Union, and endeavor to erect an Independent Government ; for 
under the present system, we can not exert our strength, 
neither does Congress seem disposed to protect us, for we 
are informed that those very troops which Congress di- 
rected the several states to raise for the defense of the 
western country are disbanded. I have just dropped this 
hint to your Excellency for reflection; if some step is not 
taken for protection, a little time will prove the truth 
of the opinion." The letter concludes thus: " I have 
been requested by the Attorney-General for the Eastern 
District to carry into eft'ect such measures as should ap- 
pear to be necessary for punishing General Clark and oth- 
ers for their conduct at Vincennes last fall, and make re- 
port to him. This direction, I perceive to be authorized 
by the order of the Council of the 28th of February, 
whereby the Attorney-General is directed to call upon the 
attorney of Kentucky, etc. The honor and dignity of 
this district call upon me to disavow such a power, and 
that it is the Executive alone who are to call upon me 
in cases of this nature, and to them alone am I to make 
report. I shall be always happy to receive the counsel and 



84 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

advice of the Attorney-General of the Eastern District, 
but never can acknowledge him as my superior." * 



* The following is the letter in full, as pubished in the Virginia State 
Papers, and as compared with the original for the writer, viz : 

Haky Innes to His Excellency, Edmund Randolph. 

Kentucky, July 21st.] Sir: Your Excellency's letter, of the 1st of 
May, was delivered to me on the 6th inst., and after reflecting on the 
contents, I feel myself constrained to ask of the Executive in what ca- 
pacity they view me, because, from the tone of your letter it would be 
construed that I was vested with some executive powers. Your letter 
directs me to institute the proper legal inquiries for indicating the in- 
fractions of the peace. How I am to proceed on that business from so 
vague a direction, I know not. In my official capacity I can not do it ; 
in a private capacity, it would render me odious. But from whom I am 
to inquire, or against whom your Excellency wishes a prosecution to be 
instituted, your Excellency's letter is silent. 

If j'our Excellency calls upon me in a private capacity, I shall be ever 
ready and willing to give you such information, as far as may come to 
my knowledge, of any matter in which the weal of the state may be in- 
terested, and shall now give you the information on the subject which 
your letter refers to, viz : Colonel John Logan's excursion in February 
last and some others. 

Indians had made their appearance upon our south-eastern fron- 
tiers at several different times in the fall and winter. Some of our 
hunters had been attacked, and early in February one of our citi- 
zens killed at his own house. This induced Colonel John Logan, the 
then commanding officer of Lincoln, to raise his corps to range on the 
waters of the Cumberland, and to rendezvous at or near the place where 
the person had been killed, which was on the branch of Green river. 
Within a few miles of the place of rendezvous Colonel Logan came 
upon the trail of the Indians, who, it was supposed, had committed the 
murder. He followed and overtook them, killed seven, and got posses- 
sion of the horses and skins they had along, among which was a val- 
uable mare of mine and horse belonging to a Mr. Blaine, of Lincoln, 
also a rifle gun, which was well known to belong to a person wdio was 
murdered in October in the wilderness, on his journey to this district. 
Judge from these facts of the innocence of the Cherokees. 

Since the excursion of Colonel Logan, one hath been made by some 
volunteers from Fayette and Bourbon, under the command of Colonel 
Robert Todd, to the Scioto, in consequence of an information received 
from the Shawanese of the hostile conduct of a small tribe, said to be 
Cherokees, who had settled on Paint creek. Upon this occasion three 
were killed and seven taken, who have since made their escape. 

Last fall an excursion was made to the Saline by some volunteers 
from Nelson, under Captain Hardin, who fell in with some Indians, 
three or four of whom he killed, and put the others to flight. Another 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 85 

The Attorney-General for the Eastern District at the 
time was the younger brother of Hary Innes, — the gallant 
soldier, the stainless patriot, the gifted orator, Colonel 
James Innes. 

Hary Innes, when he wrote this letter, was of mature 
years, and had had large experience in public affairs. 
Certainly such a letter was not written without the gravest 
consideration by its author. Assuredly he did not make 
the prediction that the country of which he was an influ- 
ential citizen would soon " Revolt from the Union," when 
neither he nor any of his acquaintances contemplated a 
step so important ! Beyond peradventure, the action so 
confidently predicted had been discussed in his presence 
and by his friends, and among them had so considerable a 



hath been made from Jefferson the last of May, under Major Oldham, 
upon the waters of the Wabash, but nothing was done. The Indians 
have been very troublesome on our frontiers, and still continue to mo- 
lest us, from which circumstance I am decidedly of opinion that this 
western country will, in a few years. Revolt from the Union and en- 
deavor to erect an Independent Government; for, under the present sys- 
tem, we can not exert our strength, neither does Congress seem dis- 
posed to protect us, for we are informed that those very troops which 
Congress directed the several states to raise for the defense of the west- 
ern country are disbanded. 1 have just dropped this hint to your Ex- 
cellency for matter of reflection ; if some step is not taken for protec- 
tion, a little time will prove the truth of the opinion. Before I close 
my letter, my duty to support the dignity of this district compels me to 
remonstrate against a late order of Council. I have been requested by 
the Attorney General for the Eastern District to carry into effect such 
measures as should appear to be necessary for punishing General Clark 
and others for their conduct at Vincennes last fall, and make report to 
him. 

This direction, I perceive, to be authorized by the order of Council, 
of the 28th of February, whereby the Attorney-General is directed to call 
upon the Attorney General of Kentucky, etc. 

The honor of the dignity of this district call upon me to disavow such 
a power, and that it is the Executive alone who are to call upon me 
in cases of this nature, and to them alone am I to make a report. 

I shall always be happy to receive the counsel and advice of the At- 
torney General of the Eastern District, but never can acknowledge him 
as my superior. 

I have the honor to be your Excellency's most obedient servant, 

IIary Innes. 



86 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

following that they felt sure of success in the movement. 
The letter is not a mere friendly note of information and 
warning to the Governor. It is an argument for, and an 
attempted justification of, the predicted " Kevolt from the 
Union," which the writer hoped, not less than he believed, 
would soon be made as he announced, and which he, a 
law officer of Virginia, was prepared to advocate and 
maintain. He did not oppose, but favored it. The whole 
trend of his conduct during the ensuing months -was to no 
other end. 

That this was his deliberate purpose is made absolutely 
certain by a peculiar incident, to the nature of which the 
attention of the reader is now expressly called : x^ineteen 
years after this letter was written by Hary Innes — in 
1806 — when he was Judge of the Federal District Court 
of Kentucky, he, together with General James Wilkin- 
son, Judge Sebastian and Honorable John Brown, were 
charged in editorials and communications in a newspaper 
called the Western World, with having been implicated in 
an intrigue with Spain to erect Kentucky into an Inde- 
pendent State, to then separate the State so erected from 
the Federal Union, and to form an alliance with Spain, 
for the ostensible purpose of obtaining the freedom of the 
navigation of the Mississippi. The charge was bitterly 
denied by Innes and his friends, and was denounced as a 
vile calumny, and as the emanation of personal malice, 
having no foundation in truth. It was alleged in his be- 
half, as well as in that of Wilkinson, Sebastian and Brown, 
that they were in favor of separating Kentucky from Vir- 
ginia, and of erecting the district into an independent state, 
but that the separation they urged Avas from Virginia only, 
and not from the Union, which, it was asserted, was never 
for a moment contemplated by any of them. The ablest of 
the writers in their defense was William Littell, a lawyer of 
considerable literar}^ ability, then living in Frankfort. At 
the solicitation of John Brown, and on the promise of a 
liberal compensation for his labor, Littell was induced, in 
the fall of 1806, to publish a pamphlet in defense of these 
men, the information contained in which was furnished to 



The Spanish Consinracy. 87 

him l)_v John Brown and Ilarylnnes; the papers in the 
Appendix of which were prepared and furnished to him by 
Hary Innes ; for writing which he was paid by John 
Brown, Ilarylnnes and Thomas Todd;* the printing of 
which was paid for by TIary Innes, John Brown, Thomas 
Todd and Caleb Wallace ; which was circulated by them ; 
the statements in which were made in their interest, and 
were by them communicated to Littell and vouched for to 
the public, to whose confidence and sympathy this appeal 
was made in their behalf; and for the accuracy, sincerity 
and integrity of which they were as responsible as if their 
names had V)een signed to its every statement and to the 
copy of every document. This pamphlet was entitled 
"A Narrative of Political Transactions in Kentucky, by 
Wm. Littell." It dwells at length upon the alleged 
grievances Kentucky had sustained at the hands of Vir- 
ginia and Congress. 

In the Appendix, marked "No. X.," was })ublished 



*In the suit for libel brought by Hary Innes, against Humphrey Mar- 
shall, Littell was made a witness by Marshall, and gave his deposition 
on the 10th of November, 1812. He deposed " that he received the 
documents forming the Appendix of that book late in the fall of 1806, 
and that he received them from Hary Innes, the plaintiff" in this cause ;" 
that several months after he had published articles in the Palladium 
in answer to the attacks made upon Innes, Brown & Co., in the Western 
World, " Mr. John Brown called on this deponent and told him, ' we 
(not mentioning any names,) have concluded to have a pamphlet 
published, containing a number of documents and animadversions on 
them, and, as we are pleased with your style, we would wish you to do 
it, or words to that import ; ' that upon his suggesting a want of time, 
Brown said, ' we mean to make you a liberal compensation,' that he 
undertook the work, was ' referred to Mr. Innes for the documents, 
received them, and wrote the book with all practicable expedition ; ' 
when called on to state his charge for his labor, he did so ; was paid $50 
by Innes, and that he ' received the residue of the compensation from 
Mr. John Brown and Colonel Thomas Todd, as far as he knows and 
believes. Mr. Brown he knows did pay him, and either Mr. Brown or 
Mr. Innes, he does not remember which, paid him some money in the 
name of or in behalf of Colonel Todd.' " The original deposition 'from 
which these extracts are taken is among the records of the Mercer Cir- 
cuit Court. Wm. Hunter, the printer, testified that he was paid for 
publishing the pamphlet by Hary Innes, John Brown, Caleb Wallace 
and Thomas Todd. 



88 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

what purported to have been a true nudfuithful copy of the 
letter written by Innes to Governor Randolph, which pre- 
tended copy was furnished to Littell by Judge Innes him- 
self, to be laid before the public. But the pamphlet shows 
upon its own face that from the copy placed before the peo- 
ple, the words, " Revolt from the Union," which were in 
the letter written to the Governor, were stricken out ; and 
that the sentence was changed to read thus : " From 
which circumstance I am decidedly of opinion that this 
western country will, in a few years, act for themselves, 
and erect an independent government," etc. And when 
Humphrey Marshall, the historian, who had only the 
version published by Littell, charged and demonstrated 
that, by the logic of the circumstances under which the 
words were used, they could only mean a government m- 
depemient of the Union, he was answered by Innes- and his 
friends that this construction originated in the malice of 
the accuser, and was slanderous and false ; that the words 
meant simply a state government independent of Virginia, 
but forming a part of the Union, a separation from which, 
they asserted, had never for an instant been considered by 
Innes. But the reader has the advantage of knowing 
what Innes actually did write to Governor Randolph, — 
which Humphrey Marshall did not know, — and from his 
own written words possesses indubitable proof that no in- 
justice was done to Innes by Humphrey Marshall's 
animadversions upon this letter. By suppressing these 
words in the manner shown, Innes manifested his own 
painful consciousness of their unerring import, as well as 
of the conclusions that would inevitably be reached by all 
who should ascertain that he had used them. The neces- 
sity w^liich drove Judge Innes to the deceit involved in 
this suppression of his own written words, and to the sub- 
stitution therefor of others, which he and his friends, 
denied possessed the meaning which was directly conveyed 
by those he had really written, was most urgent. Colonel 
John Mason Brown, the self-constituted champion of 
Judge Innes, in a note at the bottom of page 83 of his " Po- 
litical Beginnings," refers to the page in the Virginia 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 89 

State Papers, on whicli this letter, as it was written by Innes 
to Governor Randolph, is published, which shows that he 
had read the correct copy of that letter. He quoted from 
that letter the words which immediately follow the sup- 
pressed and altered passage, bat carefully suppressed the 
signiiicaut words by which the quoted passage was pre- 
ceded, and which Innes himself had suppressed in the pre- 
tended copy published by Littell. It is thus made appa- 
rent that Colonel Brown was aware of the discrepancy be- 
tween the letter as it was actually written by Innes and 
the false copy thereof published by Littell, and was con- 
scious that the line of defense which he had adopted for 
Innes, in 1890, prohibited the publication of what Innes 
himself had suppressed, in 1806.* 



*The subjoined is a copy of the " copy" of the letter as publislied in 
lAVinW^-' Narrative" hy Judge Innes. By noting the discrepancy be- 
tween the original and the pretended copy, the reader will easily de- 
tect the nature of the artifice practiced by Judge Innes and his motive 
therefor. 

Kentucky, July 21, 1789. 

Sir— Your excellency's letter of the 1st of May, delivered to me on 
the 6th inst., and after reflecting on the contents I feel myself constrained 
to ask of the executive in what capacity they view me ? Because from 
the tenor of your letter it would be construed that I was vested with 
some executive powers ; your letter directs me to institute the proper 
legal inquiries for indicating the infractions of the peace. 

In my ofiicial capacity I can nob do it; in a private capacity it would 
render me odious. But of whom I am to inquire, or against whom your 
excellency wishes a prosecution to be instituted, your letter is silent. 
If your excellency calls upon me in a private capacity, I shall be ever 
ready and willing to give you such information as far as may come 
to my knowledge, of any matter in which the weal of the State may be 
interested; and shall now give you the information on the subject 
which your letter refers to, viz.: Colonel John Logan's excursion in 
February last and some others. Indians had made their appearance 
upon our south-eastern frontiers at several different times in the fall 
and winter; some of our hunters had been attacked, and early in Feb- 
ruary one of our citizens killed at his own house ; this induced Colonel 
John Logan, the then commanding officer of Lincoln, to raise his corps 
to range on the waters of Cumberland, and to rendezvous at or near the 
place where the person had been killed, which was on the branch of 
Green river. Within a few miles of the place of rendezvous, Colonel 
Logan came upon the trail of the Indians, who it was supposed had 
committed the murder. He followed and overtook them, killed several 



90 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

The omission of those words, pregnant with meaning 
and containing the very kernel of the issue in contro- 
versy, and the rearrangement of the sentence by Innes, 
were not accidental, nor was the suppression without a 
distinct design which is too obvious to require to be stated. 
The undeniable fact which stands out, that Judge Innes, 
who was as amiable in his social relations as his official 
station was dignified, did this thing is too painful to be 
dwelt upon; the nature of the act is one upon which 
every reader will make his own comment ; nor does the 
writer care to inquire further into the motive for the de- 
liberate connivance at this suppression by the critical 
essayist, who has so wantonly resurrected these old con- 
troversies from the grave in which they had slumbered 
for more than half a centurv. The incident here related 



and got i:)Os.session of the skins and horses they had along, among 
which was a valuable mare of mine and a horse belonging to a Mr. 
Blain, of Lincoln ; also, a rifle guii which was well known to belong to 
a person who was murdered in the wilderness in October last on his 
journey to this district. Judge from these facts of the innocence of the 
Cherokees. Since the excursion by Colonel Logan, one hath been 
made by some volunteers from Fayette and Bourbon under the com- 
mand of Colonel Robert Todd, to the Scioto, in consequence of informa- 
tion received from the Shawnees of the hostile conduct of a small tribe 
said to be Cherokees, who had settled on Paint creek. Upon this occasion 
three were killed and seven taken, who have since made their escape. 
Last fall an excursion was made to the Saline by some volunteers from 
Nelson, under Captain Hardin, who fell in with some Indians, three or 
four of whom he killed, and the others put to flight. 

Another hath been made from Jefferson in June last under Major 
Oldham, upon the waters of the Wabash. Nothing was done. Indians 
have been very troublesome on our frontiers, and still continue to mo- 
lest us; from which circumstance I am decidedly of opinion that this 
western country will, in a few years, act for themselves and erect an in- 
dependent government ; for under the present system we can not exert 
our strength. Neither does Congress seem disposed to protect us, for 
we are informed that those very troops which Congress directed the 
several States to raise for the defense of the western country are dis- 
banded. I have just dropped this hint to your excellency for matter of 
reflection. If some step is not taken for our protection a little time will 
prove the truth of the opinion. 

I have the honor to be, etc. 

Hary Innes. 
Governor Ranih)li>u. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 91 

is even less important as declaring the real sentiments and 
proclivities of Judge Innes when the letter was written, 
than it is significant of his capabilities under pressure, 
and typical of all the methods employed in the defense of 
John Brown, Judge Innes, Wilkinson and Sebastian, from 
Littell's "Political Transactions," in 1806, to Colonel 
Brown's "Political Beffinning-s," in 1890, 



92 TJie Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Brown and Innes, after Giving Governor Randolph the Information 
WHICH Induced the Censure op Clark, Conceal that Fact from 
the People and Falsely Contend that he was Censured because 
he Conducted an Expedition Against the Indians — False Pre- 
tense THAT Ben Logan was also Censured for the Same Reason — 
Colonel J. M. Brown Discovers the Trick of His Grandfather 
and Imitates it — His Efforts to Cast a Slur upon Colonel Mar- 
shall. 

Another incident immediately connected with what has 
heen stated in the foregoing, and ot lilve essential nature, 
will farther aid the reader in forming a just appreciation 
of the character of the defense made for these men, by 
themselves, and by their most recent and most hardy 
champion ; and will in a measure prepare him for the 
developments hereafter to be made in these pages. 

After stating the efforts made by Governor Henry in the 
spring of 1786 to secure immediate action by Congress 
for an offensive movement against the Indians, the Littell 
pamphlet, in Chapter HI, proceeds: "The obstinate in- 
attention of Congress to these representations induced the 
executive of Virginia to give some vyry general directions 
to the county lieutenants of the district. Under these in- 
structions two expeditions were carried on against the 
Indians north of the Ohio; one under the command ot 
General Clark against the Wabash tribes, the other by 
Colonel Benjamin Logan against the Shawanese."' A little 
further on in the same chapter, referring to the spring of 
1787, occurs this passage : 

" In the spring of this year, the Indians infested and seemed likely 
to overrun the whole country. Great depredations were committed in 
almost every quarter. Congress though repeatedly urged by the executive 
of Virginia, pertinaciously refused to aflbrd the people any protection, 
and without assigning any reason for the measure, disbanded the troops 
which had apparently been raised for that purpose. And the executive 
of Virginia now censured the officers who projected and conducted the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 93 

two expeditions mentioned in the last (this) chapter as conducted by- 
General Clark and Colonel Logan, in consequence of orders received 
from the executive." 

The " ISTarrative," continuing to dwell upon the "dis- 
tressing situation " of the country, then recounts the con- 
duct of the Cherokees ; the raid of Colonel John Logan ; 
the complaint of the Indian agent (Colonel Joseph Mar- 
tin,) ; the instruction of the governor to Innes to "insti- 
tute the proper legal inquiries for indicating the infraction 
of the treaty" (a misquotation) ; and the reply of Innes. 
[t was plainly the intention to convey by these statements 
the idea, that General Clark and Benjamin Logan were 
censured by the executive of Virginia /or " projecting and 
conducting," and because they had so "projected and con- 
ducted," the two expeditions in question ; and such would 
indubitably be the impression received by any one who 
reads these statements and who is uninformed as to the 
real facts, with which all the parties who paid for the 
writing and printing of Littell's pamphlet were fully ac- 
quainted. These facts were then, and are now : That no 
censure was ever passed by the executive of Virginia* 
upon General Clark for having " projected and conducted" 
his expedition against the Wabash Indians ; that the 
charges brought against him for misconduct which occa- 
sioned the failure of that expedition were preferred by his 
own officers, but no censure was cast upon him by the 
executive on that account ; that the censure which the 
executive did pass upon General Clark related exclusively 
to his conduct at Vincennes, subsequent to the abandon- 
ment of the expedition, not so much for assuming to re- 
cruit men and commission officers without legal authority, 
but particularly for his seizure upon the property of Span- 
ish merchants there and in the Illinois, in violation of the 
laws of nations, and in derogation of the dignity of the 
state ; and that this censure was induced by the representa- 
tions of, and proof furnished b}^ Hary Innes, John Brown 
and Caleb Wallace, (among others) — the very men who 



* Patrick Henry had ceased to be Governor, and was succeeded by 
Edmund Randolph, who was the executive alluded to. 



94 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

cited this action as .a manifestation of the ill will of the 
governor to Kentucky and as one of the acts which, they 
alleged, drove her people to exasperation. That they 
might by this complaint against Virginia conciliate the 
favor of the numerous and influential relatives of Clark, 
tliese men did not scruple to conceal from them, as well as 
from the people to whose contidence and generous sympa- 
thy tliey appealed, that the censure passed upon him was 
produced by their own letter. That the imposture might 
succeed, and that the people might be persuaded that 
Clark was humiliated because lie had defended them 
against the Indians, Judge Innes, (one of whose omis- 
sions from his letter to Randolph, in the pretended copy 
thereof he published in Littell, has already been noted,) 
found it equally necessary to omit, and did omit, from the 
same alleged cop}'^ the passage in the original, in which he 
declined to obey the directions to prosecute Clark 
" for his conduct at Yincennes," — the publication of 
which would have disclosed the true ground for the cen- 
sure, and thus have defeated the object of the statement. 
The dead Logan could not oppose to the assertion that he 
had been censured by the goveruor that scornful denial it 
would have met had he been alive. But as it aftected him, 
the statement was even more destitute of truth than it 
was as relating to Clark. That Judge Innes himself did 
not then construe the letter of the governor (of May 1, 
1787) concerning the " late hostilities committed on the 
Indians," to refer to the authorized expeditions in the pre- 
vious September and October, but only to the minor unau- 
thorized excursions which had recently been made by John 
Logan, Todd and others, is apparent from his own reply ; 
while the proclamation of the governor and the order of 
the council, disavowing the conduct of Clark at Vincennes, 
on their own face show that neither had application to 
Benjamin Logan, nor to his expedition, nor to any act in 
which he had participated or for which he was in any way 
responsible. 

Aside from the pamphlet issued by Innes and Brown, 
in 1806, and the work of Colonel John Mason Brown in 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 95 

1890, no book ever published contains an intimation upon 
which this injurious statement concerning Logan could 
have been based. There is not a suggestion of such a thing 
in the Virginia State Papers. A careful search among the 
archives at Richmond failed to discover a single line giv- 
ing it the shadow of countenance.* He was not included 
in the terms of, nor in any honest implication that can be 
drawn from, the censure visited upon Clark, nor was any 
reproach cast upon him by any governor throughout his 
long, useful and honorable military career. The state- 
ment in Littell was wholly an invention, the motive, for 
which is perceptible. The purpose of the "Narrative" 
was, by the most gross exaggerations, to make it appear 
that Congress and Virginia were distinctly hostile to Ken- 
tucky, and that this hostility was so flagitiously mani- 
fested as would have justified almost any act of which the 
people, in their alleged desperation, might have been 
guilty. As a flagrant illustration of this hostility, the 
j)retense was made that Clark was censured for projecting 
and conducting his expedition against the Wabash In- 
dians. But an incredulous reader might have asked, if this 
was the cause of the censure, why was it solely visited upon 
Clark who mai'ched to the Wabash and then marched 
back again, without meeting an Indian ; while Logan, 
who burned eight of the largest Shawnee towns, ravaged 
their corn-tields, killed hundreds of their cattle and more 
than a score of their w^arriors, was left unrebuked? The 
coupling of Logan with Clark, as having been included in 
and aggrieved by the censure pronounced upon the latter, 
was deemed necessary in anticipation of such inconvenient 
inquiries. 

Colonel John Mason Brown, however, was not beset by 
the temptations which harassed his grandfather and Innes 
when so hardly pressed by the Western World. He rested 
under no sore necessity other than that imposed upon him 
by the task which he had of his own accord assumed. 
Yet, in his ^'■Political Beginnings" occurs this remarkable 
passage : 



Made by Colonel Raleigh Colston at my instance. 



96 The Spanwh Consjnracy. 

" Clark had been striving with desperate valor and tenacity of pur- 
pose to hold Vincennes and Illinois.* Lof^an had completely seconded 
him, hurrying back from the Wabasht to make an attack on the Mad 
river towns of the Shawnees. Their incredible toil, patriotic sacrifice 
of time and estate, and all their splendid services extorted nothing bet- 
ter than a chilling rebuke. No sooner had Patrick Henry entered the 
office of governor (in December, 1786) than the evil days began for 
George Rogers Clark and the policy he represented. The new governor 
of Virginia (Edmund Randolph) was quickly apprised by private let- 
terst from Kentucky, that, " General George R. Clark had undertaken, 
without authority, to raise recruits, nominate officers and impress pro- 
visions in the District of Kentucky for the defense of the Post of Vin- 
cennes, and had for that purpose also seized the property of Spanish 
subjects contrary to the law of nations.? Governor Randolph gave all 
the offense and irritation possible in proceeding upon this apparently 
anonymous information.^ He wrote to Hary Innes, Attorney General 
for the district of Kentucky, adverting in very general terms to the 
complaints that had reached him, and instructed him in vague lan- 



*• Clark had as much valor and tenacity as any one, but it did not re- 
quire a great deal of either to hold Vincennes, which was not at that 
time threatened. And as for the Illinois, he had no men there at all 
except the squads he sent to seize upon the property of unofiending 
Spanish traders, whom they effectually cleaned out of all they had that 
was valuable. (See Harmer's letters in the St. Clair Papers.) 

tThe proceedings of the council of field officers held at the camp 
near Clarksville, on the 13th of September, 1786, show that Logan then 
and there left Clark to return to Kentucky to prepare for his expedition 
against the Shawnees. Logan was not nearer than Clarksville to the 
Wabash, whither Colonel Brown found it necessary to transport him, to 
connect him with Clark and to include him in the censure passed upon 
the latter. 

t The private letters were those signed by John Brown, Hary Innes, 
"Wilkinson, Wallace and others, which will be found on former pages of 
tiiis book. 

? Here Colonel Brown referred to a note at the bottom of page 322, 
Vol. 4, Virginia Calendar State Papers. This note relates to the letters 
noted just above, but does not either fully or accurately state their con- 
tents, and gives the name of Thomas Marshall only as the author. 
Exactly why the names of the others were not given, or why that of Col- 
onel Marshall was selected, out of the sixteen, to be given as the 
author, is not by me fully understood, unless it may have been that his 
was the first name signed to the paper. The note in the State Papers is 
misleading. 

*[\ What Colonel Brown styles " this apparently anonymous information " 
was the letter signed by his own grandfather, by Hary Innes, Caleb 
Wallace, James Wilkinson, Christopher Greenup, George Muter, Rich- 
ard Taylor, Thomas Marshall and eight other prominent citizens. But 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 97 

guage " to institute the proper legal inquiries for indicating the infrac- 
tions of the peace."* The answer of Innes was characteristically 
frank. He showed how there was not enough of distinct direction in 
the governor's letter to warrant any official procedure. But he im- 
proved the occasion to warn the governor that such persistent neglect 
(both Federal and on the part of Virginia,) to protect the Kentucky 
frontiers, coupled with complaintst against the men, who, being thus 
neglected, protected themselves, and followed by official prosecutions of 
leaders like Clark and LoganJ [Benjamin] would almost certainly drive 
the people to desperation, and, he added, for the executive's informa- 
tion : "I have just dropped the hint to your excellency for matter of 
reflection; if some step is not taken for protection a little time will 
prove the truth of the opinion." § Clark wisely refused to be provoked 
by the instructions that came from the Attorney General of Virginia 
directing Innes to institute a criminal prosecution. Logan quietly re- 
tired to his fai-m " 

Benjamin Logan died in 1802, in blissful ignorance that 
he had ever been subjected to the "chilling rebuke" from 
Governor Randolph, which Colonel Brown, following in the 
footsteps of his grandfather and Innes, incorrectly states 
that the hero received.^ It is true that Logan " quietly 
retired to his farm after a successful campaign," but only 
as it was equally true of all other militia oificers of that 
day, when they were not engaged in active service. But 
that he did this in consequence of any " chilling rebuke " 
which, had been administered to him, as Colonel Brown 
intended to have it believed, is wholly untrue. He re- 
mained quietly on his farm but a short time. The month 



the gallant Colonel, on a later page, imputes it to Colonel Marshall 
alone. 

* The letter of the governor, as already stated, related exclusively to 
the " late hostilities committed against the Indians," by Colonel John 
Logan, Todd, el. al., and had no reference to Clark. 

t The complaints against Clark were preferred by Innes himself, as 
well as by Brown, Wallace and others. 

t No prosecution of Ben. Logan was ever proposed. The threat that 
Kentucky would " Revolt from the Union " was not made in connection 
with the directions concerning Clark. 

§ Here Colonel Brown discreetly fails to mention that the mode in 
which the exasperation would vent itself, in Innes' opinion, was by a 
" Revolt from the Union." 

H A sketch of General Logan and some account of his descendants 
was published in "Historic Families of Kentucky," by the present writer. 

7 



98 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

of January, 1787,* found liini in Riclimond, where he was 
treated with respectful consideration by the governor and 
council, with wliom he settled the accounts of his expe- 
dition, which the General Assembly ordered to be paid. 
Orders were given that the arms and ammunition which 
the Assembly had voted for the defense of Kentucky 
should be delivered to him., on the Dick's river. (See bond 
of John Jouitt, Joseph Crockett and Richard Terrill, State 
Papers, Vol. IX., page 226.) He continued to occupy 
the position of the first officer in command in Kentucky, 
and to honorably discharge its duties, until the change in 
the form of the Federal Government in 1789. By Gov- 
ernor Randolph he was on several occasions called upon to 
perform important services, and was invariably addressed 
with courtesy, and there was manifested towards him that 
confidence which his high character was so well calculated 
to inspire. The records show that it was upon him his 
fellow citizens relied to pacif}^ the Cherokees. It was he 
who held the council at Limestone with the Shawnees, 
where he restored to them the wives and son of the aged 
Moluntha, whom the savage McGary had murdered; he 
had given them a refuge in |iis own home. His active in- 
fluence in all military affairs in the district continued to 
be in every direction exerted. f 



■*'The General Assembly had previously taken action for the defense 
of the district, such as was satisfactory to the Kentucky representatives 
in that body. One of these representatives, Colonel Joseph Crockett, in 
a letter to the governor, bearing date November 27, 178G, gave this testi- 
mony : " Since he has had the honor of a seat in the legislature he had 
observed with pleasure that the Executive was doing all in their power 
for the welfare and safety of the western frontier." [State Papers, vol. 
IV., page 185.] 

t General Logan was not, however, altogether free from small annoy- 
ances. One of these, as it appears from liis letter to Governor Randolph, 
[State Papers, vol. IV., p. 267] was the "private recommendation " which 
he had been informed and believed had been made by Innes and Muter, 
"for four gentlemen to be commissioned by Congress to transact Indian 
affairs in the destrictof Kentucky," which would have supplanted Logan. 
The letter, which is full of good sense and bad spelling, breathes a lofty 
contempt for the men who, as the author alleged, while engaged in this 
work privately, were to his face continually sounding his praises. The 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 99 

Tlie letter of Hary Innes in reply to Governor Randolph 
fully informed Colonel Brown that the directions of the 
governor had no application, and that Innes did not under- 
stand them to apply, to Benjamin Logan nor to his expedi- 
tion. Even if Colonel Brown never saw the proceedings of 
the council or the proclamation of the governor convey- 
ing the censure, he knew that it did not apply to General 
Logan or to any of his acts, and that no directions had 
ever been issued to Innes to institute proceedings against 
him. The letter which elicited the action of the council 
and governor against Clark, with the names of all its six- 
teen consj)icuous signers, was published in Billon's History 
of Indiana. The Western Annals made known that, albeit 
he afterwards evaded the direction to prosecute Clark, 
Judge Innes was one of those who gave the governor the 
information which induced that direction. Perrin's His- 
tory of Kentucky names Wilkinson as one of the signers 
of that letter, and mentions the number and respectability 
of the others. If Colonel Brown can be presumed to 
have been really ignorant, that what he describes as " ap- 
parently anonymous information," was a letter signed by 
his own grandfather and Innes, and by their friends Wal- 
lace and Wilkinson, and others, then his historical reading 
was neither so thorough nor so extensive as his admirers 
would persuade people to believe. If he was misled by 
the note in the State Payers, which he cited and from which 
he quoted; if he really supposed that the letter which was 
signed by his grandfather and fifteen others, proceeded 
from Thomas Marshall alone, he nevertheless certainly 
knew, that his statement that Randolph had proceeded 
"upon apparently anonymous information," was exactly 
the reverse of correct. Whatever his motive in this, it 
assuredly was not one of delicate consideration for the 
sensibilities of the descendants of Colonel Thomas Mar- 



brave man -wrote: "But notwithstanding these little twists can be made 
by Indiveduals and Gentlemen of Destinktion, let their Reasons Either 
be self Intrust or predjudice, it shall have no effect on me to neglect 
any Matter of Buisness wherein the Intrust of Kentucky is so much 
depending." 



100 The Spanish Covspiracy. 

shall, for he was the person whom (a little farther on) he 
intended to stigmatize as " an envious correspondent." 

But, if he knew that the information was vouched for 
by the names of sixteen of the most prominent men in 
the district and was true, and yet, (seeking to pander to 
the pride of Clark's relatives,) had an object in making it 
appear that not only was the governor's action harsh and 
unjust, but that it was induced by idle and " envious " re- 
ports entitled to no credence; and if he knew that his 
grandfather and Ilary Innes were two of the men who 
furnished this information, and yet, to propitiate the favor 
of Clark's relatives for the flimsy defense of John Brown 
he had undertaken, wished to conceal from them and the 
public his participation in the responsibility for the repre- 
sentations on which the censure was based;* — in that 



■•■■ Referring to the " Ordinance of 1787," for the government of the 
north-western territory, and providing for the future creation of states 
out of the territory ceded by Virginia to the United States, on page 85 of 
"Political Beginnings," Colonel Brown says: " It (Congress) boldly declared 
that the most western of these 'new states' 'should extend from the 
"Wabash to the Mississippi.' The line of Clark's conquest was assumed 
as the national boundary toward the west. The benefit of all his labors 
were appropriated, while even yet an envious correspondent was report- 
ing to General Randolph that Vincennes was obstinately reinforced and 
held against Spaniard and Indian by Clark without authority." In or- 
der to point oiit the person whom he described as " an envious corres- 
pondent," Colonel Brown then cited the note at the bottom of page 322 
of the Virginia State Papers (Vol. IV) which names Thomas Marshall 
alone as the author of the letter in question, which was signed by 
Brown, Innes, their friend Wilkinson and others. While the reader 
will appreciate the fine enthusiasm of Colonel Brown, he will be at a 
loss to understand the peculiar quality of that boldness in Congress, 
which was involved in the declaration that the most western of the new 
states to be erected out of the north-western territory should extend 
from the Wabash to the Mississippi, where the treaty with Great Britain 
four years before had fixed our loestern boundary. The rhetorical eftect of 
this brilliant passage is so very fine that one involuntarily regrets that 
its historical value should be impaired by the irrejiressible facts, that the 
Mississippi had been assumed and acknowledged as our western bound- 
ary years before ; that there was profound peace between the United 
States and Spain ; that there was not a Spanish soldier within hundreds 
of miles of Vincennes ; that the only Spaniards there, or in the Illinois, 
were the unoffending traders whom Clark despoiled of their goods and 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 101 

case, every one can easily comprehend his motive for sup- 
pressing the names of those who wrote the letter, and de- 
scribing it as ^'•apparently anonymous ;" which on any 
other hypothesis is wholly unaccountable. And if he was 
struck with admiration at the adroitness with which his 
grandfather and Innes concealed themselves, while repre- 
senting to a credulous people that Clark and Ben. Logan 
were censured for protecting them against the Indians ; 
and if he deemed their exploit worthy of his own emula- 
tion, it Avill sufficiently explain the otherwise incompre- 
hensible character of his " Political Beginnings." 



furs; and that, after the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, the only- 
efforts of Spain to extend her frontiers east of the Mississippi were by 
means of the overtures subsequently made by Miro to Wilkinson, and by 
Gardoqui to John Brown, and by de Carondelet to Innes and Sebastian. 
After admiring this eloquent passage in the " Political Beginnings," the 
reader will not be surprised to find that Col. Brown, warming with his 
subject, and referring to the Vincennes episode, stated, on page 123 of that 
work, that " Clark and his Kentucky troops had already seized Spanish 
posts and confiscated Spanish munitions ; " — as if Vincennes had been 
a Spanish fort, or as though the beaver skins of which Clark despoiled 
the traders, had been loaded ! And why Colonel Marshall should have 
been " envious " of the gallant and unhappy General Clark, it would 
have sorely taxed Colonel Brown's ingenuity to have explained. 



102 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER Vll. 

The Convention of 1786 — The General Assembly, for Good Reasons, 
Postpones the Date of the Separation— Politicians Seek to In- 
fluence THE People; but the Convention Loyally Accepts the 
Situation — The News of the " Jay Project " Known in Ken- 
tucky in the Fall of 1786 — Proof that It was Known to Brown, 
Innes and Others Certainly as Early as December, 1786 — The 
Virginia Assembly Passes Resolutions Relating Thereto in No- 
vember, 1786— The Action of the General Assembly Known in 
Kentucky in January, 1787— Brown, Innes and Sebastian Knew 
OF IT before their CIRCULAR OF March, 1787 — JoiiN Mason Brown's 
Misrepresentations Exposed. 

It has been stated that so many of the delegates chosen 
to the convention of September, 1786, were engaged in 
the expeditions of Chirk and Logan, that the few who 
assembled in Danville at the appointed time, finding them- 
selves without a quorum, in order to keep the bodj^ legally 
alive met and adjourned from day to day until a sufiicient 
number were present for the transaction of business ; and 
that this did not occur until January, 1787. In the mean- 
time, the reasons why the terms of separation fixed in the 
act of the Assembly could not possibly be complied with, 
on account of the absence of the members, with a respect- 
ful request that those terms should be modified to meet 
the situation, were embodied in a memorial, which was 
forwarded to John Marshall, for presentation to the Assem- 
bly, of which he was a member.* This was done by Mr. 



^Members had heen elected to the House at the same time that dele- 
gates to the convention were chosen. These members were : John 
Rogers, Joseph Crockett and John Fowler, from Fayette ; Richard Ter- 
riU and John Campbell, from Jefferson ; John Jouitt, Andrew Hynes, 
James Henderson and George Jackson, from other counties. The names 
given are all which are preserved. All of these attended the assembly. 
John Brown was a member of the Senate, but he did not attend a single 
day during the session, remaining in Danville attending the convention, 
of which he w^as a member. The reason why the business was entrusted 
to Marshall, notwithstanding the presence of these gentlemen, is obvious. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 103 

Marsliall, who failed to secure the alterations desired. 
Instead, the Assembly, on the 10th of January, 1787, 
enacted that members of another convention* should be 
elected in the ensuing August, to meet in Danville, on the 
third Monday in September, to whom should be submitted 
the question of separation ; in case of affirmative action, 
the authority of Virginia was to cease not later than the 
first day of January, 1789; provided that, prior to the 
fourth day of July, 1788, Congress should assent to the 
erection of the State and provide for her admission into 
the Union. This delay was predicated upon the fact that, 
so much valuable time having been lost by the absence of 
the members of the convention, there was not sufficient 
remaining for the convention, and the people f of the 
district, to comply with the prescribed conditions wisely 
fixed by the original act of separation, in time to enable 



*"Henning's Statutes, Vol. XII., page 240. 

tThe following extract from a letter of John Marshall to his father, 
Colonel Thomas Marshall, who was a member of the convention, gives 
the sound reasons for the delay, which were generally accepted as con- 
clusive by tlie convention, to which the contents of the letter were 
made known, viz.: 

" The act is not precisely such as I wished it to be, nor is it conform- 
able to the resolutions of the committee before whom I appeared, but 
it may, perliaps, be formed on cautious principles ; on principles more 
to the peace and harmony of the district than had my wishes (^ which 
were to enable the present convention to decide the question finally) 
prevailed. Those, sir, who introduced and passed the law, reasoned 
that the power delegated to the convention by the people, to decide 
upon a separation, was limited in point of time to a decision to be 
made in such time that Congress might consider and determine on the 
admission of your State into the Union, by the first day of June, 1787, 
that an existence for twelve months was given for other purposes 
pointed out in the law ; that as you are very much divided among 
yourselves, and there does not appear to be in the minority a dispo- 
sition to submit with temper to the decision of the majority, and the 
measures of the convention in consequence of a defect in the original 
law, would be liable to some objection. The most safe, unexceptionable 
and accommodating plan is to pass a law in which the defects of the 
former act may be corrected, and which shall enable the present con- 
vention either to sit till their term has expired, or to call immediately 
a new convention, to the decisions of which the disappointed can make 
no objection." 



104 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Congress to assent and provide for the admission ot the 
new State prior to the first day of June, 1787, as stipulated 
in the original act of separation passed by the assembly. 
In evidence of the good will which inspired this legisla- 
tion, the assembly reiterated its sincere purpose that the 
district should become a State under the original condi- 
tions " whenever the good people thereof so determine and 
the United States in Congress shall thereof apjjvove." Con- 
vinced of the justice of the reasoning on which this delay 
was based, John Marshall yielded to the new act a reluct- 
ant assent, and in a letter which was immediately for- 
warded to Kentucky, stated the argument which made its 
wisdom apparent.* [Littell.] 

Late in January, 1787, a quorum of members attended 
the convention, by whom it was immediately resolved, 
" That it was expedient and the will of the good people of 
the district, that the same should become a state separate 
from and independent of Virginia, upon the terms of the 
act." Scarcely had the convention time to get down to 
its other work, when information was received of the 
changes made in the law, which rendered nugatory all 
that had been done and made necessary a repetition of all 
these preleminary forms, f The keen sense of disappoint- 
ment experienced by the delegates to the convention was 



■•■■'The writer has seen only the extracts from this letter, -which were 
published in Littell, who states that it was addressed to Colonel Thomas 
Marshall. John Mason Brown reproduces those extracts from and 
credits them to Littell, without stating to w hom the letter was addressed. 
{Political Beginnings, pages 77 and 78.] 

1" Humphrey Marshall, Vol. I, page 254, states that this information 
was received by the president of the convention, Colonel Samuel Mc- 
Dowell, " in a letter from a member of the legislature ; " but does not 
name the member. On the same page, he states that John Marshall 
" by letter, stated the reasons which influenced the general assembly in 
passing the new law ; " but he does not state to whom this letter was 
addressed. The statements of Littell and Marshall are easily reconciled 
on the presumption that the letter to Colonel McDowell was written by 
some member of the assembly other than John Marshall, probably by 
one of the Kentucky members ; and that the letter of John Marshall, 
in which he explained the motives of the assembly, and referred to its 
action concerning Mr. Jay's suggestion, was to his father. Colonel 
Thomas Marshall. 



The Spanish Consjnracy. 105 

natural. It was inevitable that among them men were 
found who seized upon so favorable an occasion to throw 
odium upon the assembly for an act rendered necessary by 
occurrences which that body did not control; and who 
endeavored to arouse and inflame the people, not only 
against Virginia, but against the Union as well. Still, the 
convention adjourned without an outbreak more serious 
than ebullitions of passion on the part of some of the 
politicians ; by the great body of the people the situation 
was accepted with becoming moderation. Their conduct 
under all environments and incitements was a splendid 
illustration of the law-abiding spirit, the patient endur- 
ance of grievances for which a peaceful remedy may be 
had, the steady courage amidst difficulties, and the persist- 
ent purpose under all discouragements, which, with the 
unfaltering faith taught by the Calvinistic philosophy, are 
the distinguishing characteristics of the Scotch-Irish race, 
which was then so largely dominant in the public affairs of 
the district. But now another a^jpeal to passion was made, 
another and a greater temptation was ofiered, only to be 
resisted and overcome. 

The communication made by Mr. Jay to Congress on 
the 3d of September, 1786, when summoned before that 
body to explain the obstacles which had prevented the 
conclusion of a treaty with Spain ; and the suggestions he 
then made, that it would be expedient to rescind the in- 
structions previously given him by Congress, in order that 
he might propose to the Spanish minister a treaty limited 
to twenty or thirty years, during which time the United 
States should "■forbear" to navigate the Mississippi below their 
southern boundary, were made known in the west in the fall 
of the same year. This is shown by the letter of Thomas 
Green, dated December 4, 1786, prior to which time the 
intelligence had been generally circulated throughout the 
west. The fact was known in Virginia as early as Octo- 
ber, and on the 17th of November, 1786, the representa- 
tives from Kentucky, * and West Virginia, and a number 



Kentucky then had from ten to fourteen delegates in the assembly. 



106 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

of officers who had served in the revolution and were in- 
terested in lands in Kentucky, addressed to the assembly 
a memorial remonstrating against the proposition. It will 
scarcely be denied that they had the interest of the west 
as much at heart as any of the inhabitants thereof. Yet 
they resorted to no inflammatory appeals to passion, nor 
called a convention, but made known their grievance and 
stated their wishes to the legislature of their state, as the 
constitutional organ through which an appeal should be 
made to Congress. The house of delegates, accordingly, 
passed on the 29th of jS'ovember, and the Senate on the 
7th of December, 1786, resolutions, the first of which 
states that the action was based upon the remonstrance of 
"sundry inhabitants of the western country."* These 
resolutions, which were of the most decisive character, 
condemned the proposition in the strongest terms, and in- 
structed the Virginia delegates in Congress never to accede 
to " Jay's project." That the exaggerated reports repre- 
senting that Congress had actually concluded a treaty 
with Spain ceding to that power the navigation of the 
Mississippi for thirty years, were prevalent throughout 
Kentucky and the west in the fall and early winter of 
1786, is proved by the inflammatory circular, dated De- 
cember 4, 1786, which was distributed and as well as by 
the letter of Thomas Green to the governor of Georgia ; 
and that those reports were known to John Brown, Hary 
Innes, and George Muter at least as early as December 
22, 1786, is incontestibly established by their signatures to 

*The Journal of the Senate shows that the affirmative vote by which 
these resolutions were passed was of Senators Alexander St. Clair, 
William Hubbard, Matthew Anderson, Robert Rutherford, John Syme, 
Thomas Roane, John P. Duvall, Nicholas Cabell and Charles Lynch. 
Nicholas Cabell was the conspicuous senator in promoting their passage, 
and was appointed to communicate the action of the Senate to the 
house of delegates. He was one of the sons of Dr. William Cabell, and 
the ancestor of Mrs. Helm Bruce, of Louisville. The senators who 
voted in the negative were Colonel Burwell Bassett, Turner Southall, 
Isaac Avery and Thomas Lee. Colonel Bassett's wife was the sister of 
Mrs. Washington, and they were the ancestors of the wife of Governor 
Buckner. The sister of Colonel Bassett married Ben. Harrison, of 
Berkeley, and was the mother of President William H. Harrison. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 107 

the letter of that date complaining of Clark's conduct at 
Vincennes and of Green's illicit designs. 

The letter of a member of the General Assembly which 
conveyed to the President of the convention at Danville 
the intelligence of the new act of separation, was written 
after the passage of that act (January 10, 1787), and yet 
reached Danville late in the same month. On the 11th of 
January, 1787, the General Assembly adjourned, and the 
Kentucky members soon thereafter returned to the dis- 
trict.* If it can be presumed that out of all the members 
present from Kentucky in the assembly, at whose partic- 
ular instance the resolutions were passed, there was not 
one who deemed the subject of the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi of sufficient importance to induce him to trans- 
mit to his constituents information of the action of that 
body thereon ; if it can be credited that even after their 
return to their homes, those representatives failed to make 
known the action Virginia had already taken ; — still it is 
certain, that the letter of John Marshall, which stated the 
reasons that animated the assembly in postponing the 
time for the separation of the district, and lohich also ynade 
known the action of the assembly in reference to the " Jay 
project," was received in January, 1787, before the adjourn- 
ment of the convention, and that the contents were made 
known to its members. While it is probable that the 
great mass of the people were ignorant that Virginia had, 
through her assembly, authoritatively spoken (there was 
no public press in the district at the time), yet the facts 
were well known to all the prominent men assembled in 
Danville at the time, among whom were John Brown, Hary 
Innes, George Muter, who were residents of the place, and 



*The trip from Richmond to Kentucky usually occupied about three 
weeks. The gallant John Jouitt, one of the Kentucky members at this 
time, was delayed by the preparations necessary for conveying the large 
quantity of arms and ammunition contributed by Virginia for the de- 
fense of Kentucky, from Redstone Old Fort, on the JVIonongahela, to 
the mouth of Limestone (Maysville) ; still he reached Kentucky in 
March, as shown by his letter. 



108 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Benjamin Sebastian, who attended the session of the dis- 
trict court.* 

The letter of John Marshall giving information of the 
emphatic and spirited action of Virginia, which was re- 
ceived during the sitting of the convention, was calculated, 
as it was intended, to soothe any irritation that might 
have been previously excited.f But, a few weeks after 



••■The resolutions of 1786, referred to, were as follows, viz.: 

1. " Resolved, unanimously, That a copy of the memorial of sundry in- 
habitants of the western country, be transmitted to the delegates repre- 
senting this State in Congress. 

2. " Resolved, unanimously, That the common right of navigating the 
Mississippi, and of communicating with other nations through that 
channel, be considered as the bountiful gift of nature to the United 
States, as proprietors of the territories watered by said river and its 
eastern branches. 

3. "Resolved, unanimously. That the confederacy, having been 
formed on the broad basis of equal rights in every part thereof, and 
confided to the protection and guardianship of the whole ; a sacrifice of 
the rights of any one part, to the supposed, or real interest of another 
part, would be a flagrant violation of justice and a direct contravention 
of the end for which the federal government was instituted, and an 
alarming innovation on the system of the Union. 

4. "Resolved, therefore, unanimously. That the delegates represent- 
ing this State in Congress, be instructed, in the most decided terms, to 
oppose any attempts that may be made in Congress, to barter or sur- 
render to any nation whatever, the right of the United States to the 
free and common use of the river Mississippi ; and to protest against the 
same as a dishonorable departure from that comprehensive and benev- 
olent policy which constitutes the vital principle of the confederation ; 
as provoking the just resentments and reproaches of our western breth- 
ren, whose essential rights and interests would be thereby sacrificed 
and sold; as destroying that confidence in the wisdom, justice and lib- 
erality of the federal councils, which is so necessary at this crisis, to a 
proper enlargement of their authority; and finally, as tending to under- 
mine our repose, our prosperity, and our Union itself : and that the 
said delegates be further instructed to urge the proper negotiations with 
Spain for obtaining her concurrence in such regulations touching the 
mutual and common use of the said river, as may secure the permanent 
harmony and afiection of the two nations, and such as the wise and 
generous policy of his Catholic majesty will perceive to be no less due 
to the interests of his own subjects than to the just and friendly views of 
the United States. 

t The following is the extract from that letter published by Littell, 
and reproduced in "Poliiical Beginnings," viz: " The negociation which 
has opened with Spain, for ceding the navigation of the Mississippi — a 



I'he Spanish Conspiracy. 109 

the adjournment of the convention, an association of men 
styTing'themselves " a committee of correspondence in the 
Avestern part of Pennsylvania," addressed to the people of 
Kentucky a circular, which contained this statement, viz: 

" That John Jaj'^, the American secretary for foreign affairs, had made 
a proposition to De Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, to cede the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi to Spain for twenty-five or thirty years ; in con- 
sideration of some commercial advantages, to be granted to the United 
States ; but such as the people of the western country could derive no 
profit from." 

A meeting was thereupon held in Danville, and the fol- 
lowing circular was addressed and distributed to the peo- 
ple, viz : 

"Circular Letter directed to the different Courts in the Western Country. 

Kentucky, Danville, March 29, 1787. 

" A respectable number of the inhabitants of the district, having met 
at tliis place, being greatly alarmed at the late proceedings of Congress, 
in proposing to cede to the Spanish court the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi river, for twenty-five or thirty years, have directed us to address 
the inhabitants on the western waters, and inform them of the measures 
which it is proper for the district to adopt. 

" The inhabitants of the several counties in this district, will be re- 
quested to elect five members in each county, to meet in Danville on 
the first Monday of May, to take up the consideration of this project of 
Congress; to prepare a spirited but decent remonstrance against the 
cession ; to appoint a committee of correspondence, and to communi- 
cate with one already established on the Monongahela, or any other 
that may be constituted ; to appoint delegates to meet representatives 
from the several districts on the western waters, in convention, should a 
convention be deemed necessary ; and to adopt such other measures as 
shall be most conducive to our happiness. As we conceive that all the 
inhabitants residing on the western waters are equally affected by this 
partial conduct of Congress, we doubt not but they will readily approve 
of our conduct, and cheerfully adopt a similar system, to prevent a 
measure which tends to almost a total destruction of the western coun- 
try. This is a subject which requires no comment; the injustice of the 
measure is glaring ; and as the inhabitants of this district wish to unite 
their efforts to oppose the cession of the navigation of the Mississippi, 
with those of their brethren residing on the western waters, we hope to 

negociation so dishonorable and injurious to America, so destructive of 
the natural rights of the western world — is warmly opposed in this coun- 
try (Virginia), and for this purpose the most pointed instructions are given 
our delegates in Congress. I persuade myself that the negotiation will 
terminate in securing instead of ceding that great point." [Littell's Appendix 
8, page 21.] 



110 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

see such an exertion made upon the important occasion, as may con- 
vince Congress that the inhabitants of the western country are united 
in the opposition and consider themselves entitled to all the privileges 
of freemen, and those blessings procured by the revolution, and will 
not tamely submit to an act of oppression which would tend to a de- 
privation of our just rights and privileges. 

" We are, gentlemen, with respect, your most obedient servants, 

George Muter, 
Harry Innes, 
John Brown, 
Benjamin Sebastian." 

The attention of the reader will at once be arrested by 
these facts : First, that the statement made in the circular 
that the proposition in question had been made by Congress 
to the Spanish minister was untrue, and was not even war- 
ranted by the information the authors had received from 
the Pennsylvania committees, by whom it was only alleged 
that the proposition had been made to the Spanish min- 
ister by John Jay, our secretary for foreign affairs. Second, 
that the circular withheld from the people the important 
information which its authors had from John Marshall's 
letter, even if they did not have it from the Kentucky 
representatives in the Assembly, that Virginia had already 
acted on the subject in a manner the most prompt, em- 
phatic and decided. [The want of mail facilities and of a 
public press, leaving the people in ignorance of public 
affairs, placed them much at the mercy of the designing 
and unscrupulous.] Third, that in addition to preparing 
a remonstrance against the proposed cession, appointing a 
committee of correspondence to communicate with that 
in Pennsylvania and with any other, and delegates to meet 
with delegates from other districts in the west in a con- 
vention; that, in addition to all this, the convention called 
by the circular was invited to "adopt such other measures 
as shall be most conducive to our happiness," which cer- 
tainly gave a very wide latitude to a self-constituted body, 
possessing no legal power whatever. "With this exception 
the verbiage of the circular was unobjectionable. But, if 
only legal methods were contemplated, and if the right of 
united remonstrance and protest only was expected to be 
resorted to, it is difficult to conceive what result the 
authors of this circular hoped that the meeting it called 



The Spanish Conspiracy. Ill 

could accomplish by such means more eftective than that 
which would be attained by the authoritative resolutions 
of the Virginia Assembly, which had been passed four 
months before, and of which they already had full knowl- 
edge. The people at large, who had no opportunity of 
knowing the real facts, and who were imposed upon by 
this circular, were greatly disturbed, as its authors in- 
tended they should be, and acted as they were requested to 
do. Delegates to the convention were elected from all the 
counties, and met in Danville in May, when the facts as to 
the real action of Congress, which was not stated in the 
circular, and as to that of the Assembly, which the cir- 
cular had suppressed, were made known to all, and the 
exaggerations of the circular were corrected. After nu- 
merous propositions, calculated and designed to increase 
the fears and add to the excitement of the people had 
been offered by the authors of this circular, and by others, 
in the shape of remonstrances, and had been defeated, the 
convention, finding themselves completely anticipated by 
the action of the Assembly, and that there was nothing 
proper and legal to be done that was left for them to do, 
adjourned,* without action of any kind. It was in June 
after the issuing of this circular and after this meeting, 
that General Wilkinson made his first trading venture to 
ISTew Orleans ; and it was in July that Hary Innes, one of 
the signers thereof, wrote to Governor Randolph that, in 
his opinion, "this western country will, in a few years. 
Revolt from the Union," which opinion and the declaration 
thereof, if it be conceded that they should not be associated 
with the circular and with the movement which it sought 
to inaugurate throughout the whole of the western coun- 
try, assuredly does not render that circular and attempted 
movement the less significant.! 



* Collins, vol. I., page 264. 

tin his letter to Mr. Jefferson, March 19, 1787, \_Madison Papers, vol. 
II., page G24,] Mr. Madison refers to this movement: " I have credible 
information that the people living on the western waters are already in 
great agitation and are taking measures for uniting their consultations. The 
ambition of individuals will quickly mix itself with the original motives 



112 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

It (lid not suit the purpose of John Brown and Hary 
Innes to make known to the people through the pamphlet 
they induced Littell to write in 1806, that they had re- 
ceived information of Jay's proposition at least as early as 
December, 1786; so that fact, as well as their participation 
in the letter to Randolph, was carefully omitted from the 
" Political Transactions." And a statement was made of 
the communication received from the Pennsylvania com- 
mittee in March, 1787, as if that was the first informa- 
tion which had been received in Kentucky of that propo- 
sition. 

In the Appendix to the Political Transactions the reso- 
lutions passed by the Virginia assembly in 1806 (by the 
house on the 29th of ISTovember and by the senate on the 
7th of December), were published, and the date of their 
passage was given as the 29th of Kovember, 1786. And 
in the course of the "I^arrative" it was stated that the 
convention called by the circular issued by Brown, Innes, 
Muter and Sebastian, and which met in Danville in May, 
1787, adjourned without action, '■'■ because th^y learned that 
the legislature of Virginia had entered into several resolu- 
tions, on the subject, expressed in strong language, and 
had instructed her delegates in Congress to oppose the 
cession;" — as if that had been the ^rs^ information re- 
ceived of those resolutions; — which may have been true 
of some of the delegates, but was utterly untrue as to 
Innes, Brown, Muter and "Wilkinson, who had known of 
the fact from the letter of John Marshall received during 
the session of the convention in January. In Littell's Ap- 
pendix was also published the second series of resolutions 
on the same subject which were passed by the Virginia 
house of delegates (they were never introduced into the 
senate) on the 12th of November, 1787, as if they had been 



of resentment and interest. Communication will gradually take place 
with their British neighbors. They will be led to sel up for themselves, to 
seize on the vacant lands, to entice immigrants by bounties and an ex- 
emption from Federal burdens, and in all respects play the part of 
Vermont, in a large theater. It is hinted to me that British partisans are 
already feehng the pulse of some of the western settlements." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 113 

the result of the circular of Innes, Brown & Co., and of 
the meeting in Danville in May of that year ; and, in re- 
producing this second series, Littell gave the correct date 
of their passage — November 12, 1787. 

On the 81st page of his " Political Beginnings," Colonel 
John Mason Brown reproduces the resolutions which were 
passed by the house of delegates on the 12th of November, 
1787, crediting them to Littell, who gave that date as the 
time of their passage ; but, in publishing these resolutions, 
he represents them to have been the resolutions which 
were passed by the house of delegates on the 29th of No- 
vember, 1786, which resolutions were also published in 
Littell with their proper date. If this was not the most 
strange of all possible inadvertences, the only rational mo- 
tive that can be conjectured for the omission of the reso- 
lutions really passed in 1786, and the substitution therefor 
of those which were passed in 1787, may be found in the 
fact, that the first of the series of 1786, which speaJss of 
the remonstrance of " sundry inhabitants of the western 
country," shows at whose instance the action was taken, 
and disproves the claim which Colonel Brown makes on a 
subsequent page of his book, that the exclusive credit for 
obtaining this action was due to his grandfather. It has 
already been seen that his statement that the letter of 
John Marshall conveyed the first news of the Jay project 
Kentucky is untrue. * The purpose of John Marshall's 
allusion to the subject in the letter referred to was evi- 
dently not to give news of " Jay's project" to the people of 
Kentucky, for it assumes as a fact what he knew to be 
true, that they had had that news months before his letter 
was written ; but it was to give assurance of the warm 
opposition to the project which existed in the eastern part 
of Virginia, of the pointedness of the instructions to 
oppose it, which had been given to the Virginia delegates 
in Congress, and of Mr. Marshall's own conviction that 
the result of the negotiation would be the securing of that 



* See letter of Thomas Green to the governor of Georgia, and that of 
John Brown, Innes, and others to Governor Randolph. 



114 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

navigation for the west, instead of an abandonment 
thereof to Spain. Its natural tendency as well as its pur- 
pose was, not to create excitement and irritation, but to 
relieve fears that had been previously entertained. 

But, not satisfied with his erroneous statement that this 
letter gave ^' the first Jieios" of the project, Colonel Brown 
proceeded to ascribe the conduct of John Brown and 
Innes in issuing their circular to the alarm produced by 
that letter and the corroboration it received from other 
sources. On the 79th page, he says : " It (' the news thus 
sent to the west by John Marshall ') greatly alarmed all 
who appreciated the vital importance to Kentucky and 
the people of an unobstructed navigation of the Missis- 
sippi. A meeting of citizens at once convened, and in 
their behalf a circular-letter was put forth over the signa- 
tures of George Muter, Harry Innes, John Brown and Ben- 
jamin Sebastian. It bore date 29th March, 1787." As 
this letter of John Marshall was received before the ad- 
journment of the convention in January, several months 
after the " news of Jay's project " was prevalent all over 
Kentucky and Tennessee, and two months before the issu- 
ing of that circular, it is evident that the circular was not 
predicated upon nor caused by that letter, as Colonel 
Brown intimates, and that the excitement and apprehen- 
sion which Innes and Brown did all in their power to 
create and increase, was not occasioned by any " news sent 
to the west by John Marshall." Colonel Brown goes on 
to say : " The circular attracted immediate and earnest 
attention. A conference was held at Danville in May (as 
the circular-letter suggested), but happily Virginia had 
already taken action that emphatically voiced the senti- 
ments of the west." . . Colonel Brown then tells us 
that the resolutions passed by Virginia on the 29th of No- 
vember, 1786, which "were long delayed in reaching the 
western settlements," reassured the people of Kentucky. 
This is true, as it relates to many of the delegates in the 
May meeting and to the great body of the people. But 
the signers of that circular had no need of that reassur- 
ance. They knew that Virginia had " happily already 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 115 

taken action ; " knew of the authoritative instructions the 
assembly had given to Virginia's delegates in Congress; — 
knew it from the very letter which Colonel Brown (in his 
efforts to fasten upon John Marshall the responsibility for 
the bad disposition which gave birth to the circular) says 
gave them their ^^ first news " of the project ! Why then 
did they ever issue the circular ? If a legal remonstrance 
was all they meditated, did they expect one from a meet- 
ing of the people of a district of Virginia, a meeting 
which possessed no legal power, would be more potential 
than that which had already gone forward from the con- 
stitutional authority of the whole state ? The explanation 
given in Madison's letter to Jefferson, which has been 
quoted, affords the only rational solution. 

After having taken these strange liberties with the 
facts, Colonel Brown, warming with his subject, was en- 
couraged to take yet greater liberties with his readers. 
The denial in the quotations made from the " Political 
Beginnings," that John Brown, Innes & Co. knew of 
" Jay's project" until John Marshall's letter was received; 
and the further denial that they knew of the action hap- 
pily taken by Virginia until after they had issued their 
circular of March 29, 1787 ;* makes clear Colonel Brown's 
own consciousness of the unfavorable light in which the 
certainty that John Brown had knowledge of that action 
prior to the circular would place his grandfather. Still the 
temptation to claim for his own ancestor the exclusive 
credit of having been the principal factor in the defeat of 

* There are in Kentucky and scattered throughout the west a large 
number of the descendants of the men who then represented Ken- 
tucky in the Virginia Assembly. They are modest people, unassuming 
and not given to boast of their ancestry. Besides, they feel that there 
was nothing in the conduct of those who went before them which 
needs explanation or demands a vindication. For that reason, perhaps, 
they would be the last persons in the world to claim for their ancestors 
a credit which did not belong to them, and to which others were en- 
titled. To give them a chance the writer deems it proper to say, that 
the delegates from Kentucky who procured the passage of those resolu- 
tions were : Colonel John Campbell, Captain John Jouitt, James Hen- 
derson, Colonel Joseph Crockett, .Tohn Fowler, Eichard Terrill, George 
Jackson, John Rogers and Andrew Hynes. 



116 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the " Jay project" was irresistible. So on the 121st page 
of the " Political Beginnings" he coolly assures the con- 
fiding public that " BroAvn, representing Kentucky as a 
Senator in the Virginia Assembly, procured from it the 
emphatic declaration of 26th (he meant the 29th of No- 
vember, 1786, already mentioned) ;" and he then quotes 
one of the resolutions passed by the House of Delegates 
on the \2th of November, 1787. His language was intended 
to convey the impression that John Brown luas in the 
Senate in ISTovember, 1786, when the resolutions of that 
date were passed, and that he had procured their passage. 
When it is necessary to magnify the importance of this 
very remarkable man, John Brown, his yet more remark- 
able grandson transports him from Danville, Kentucky, 
where he in fact was at the time,* to Richmond, Virginia ; 
fully acquaints him with all the details of " Jay's project" 
and represents him as procuring the passage by the Vir- 
ginia Assembly on the 29th of November, 1786, of the 
resolutions condemning that project, with which, in fact, 
he had nothing whatever to do.f When it is desired to 
have it appear that the agitation fomented by Brown and 
Innes and their friend Sebastian, in the spring of 1787, was 
the eftect of the letter of John Marshall, it is alleged that 
the ^'- first news" of the Jay project reached Kentucky in 
that letter, which was not received until the last of Janu- 
ary, 1787 ; although their signatures to the letter to Gov- 
ernor Randolph prove that Brown and Innes had received 
the news of that project in December, 1786, if not earlier. 
And to palliate the significant circular, it is pretended 



■•■ His signature to the letter to Governor liandoliih, December 22, 
1876, shows that he was then in Danville. 

t On -the 1st of November, 1786, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Virginia 
Senate was ordered to take into custody a number of the absentees, 
among whom was John Brown, who did not attend during a single day 
of the session. Though he continued to be a member of the Senate, 
Mr. Brown did not take part in any of the deliberations of that body 
from the day he was excused from further attendance that session, in 
January, 1786, until he went on to secure his election to Congress in 
October, 1787. [See Journals of Virginia Senate.] 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 117 

that no information that Virginia had already " happily 
acted" in I^ovember, 1786, was received until after the cir- 
cular had been issued on the 29th of March, 1787 ; and 
this, notwithstanding that that information, according to 
the extract printed by Colonel Brown himself (page 78), 
was conveyed in the very letter of John Marshall which 
he says brought to Kentucky the "iirst news of 'Jay's 
project,'" and which was received two months before that 
circular was issued. As a " Comedy of Errors" the " Po- 
litical Beginnings" is an admirable production.* 



"■■• John Marshall was a member of the House of Delegates which 
passed the resolutions of that year. He and his father, Colonel Thomas 
Marshall, wei'e both members of the House of Delegates of 1787, which 
passed the second series. The latter were never introduced into the 
Senate. The record shows that .John Brown had no part in passing 
them. The following is a copy of that record from the original journal 
made for the writer by Colonel Raleigh Colston, viz : 

Monday, November 12, 1787. 

•'The House then, according to the order of the day, resolved itself 
into a committee of the whole House on the State of the Common- 
wealth ; and, after some time spent therein, Mr. Speaker resumed the 
Chair, and Mr. Thruston reported that the Committee had, according to 
order, again had the state of the Commonwealth under their consider- 
ation, and had come to several resolutions thereupon, which he read in 
his place, and afterward delivered in at the clerk's table, when the 
same were again severally twice read, and on the question put there- 
upon, agreed to by the House as followeth : 

Resolved, that it is the opinion of this committee, That the free use and navi- 
gation of the western streams and rivers of this Commonwealth, and of 
the waters leading to the sea, do, of right, appertain to the citizens 
thereof, and ought to be considered as guaranteed to them by the laws 
of God and nature as well as compact. 

Resolved, that it is the opinion of this committee. That every attempt in Con- 
gress, or elsewhere, to barter away such right, ought to be considered as 
subversive of justice, good faith, and the great foundations of moral 
rectitude, and particularly destructive of the principles which gave 
birth to the late resolution, as well as strongly repugnant to all confi- 
dence in the Federal Government, and destructive to its peace, safety, 
happiness and duration. 

Resolved, that it is the opinion of the committee. That a committee ought to 
be appointed to prepare instructions to the delegates representing this 
State in Congress to the foregoing import, and to move that honorable 
body to pass an act acknowledging the rights of this State, and that it 
transcends their power to cede or suspend them ; and desiring the said 



118 The Spanish Consjrmicy. 

Relieved by the absence of Wilkinson, who had gone to 
E'ew Orleans, the people proceeded in August, 1787, with- 
out acrimonious discussion and without tumult, to elect 
delegates to the convention authorized by the new act of 
separation to meet in Danville in September of that year. 
The district had now been divided into seven counties, 
which chose the delegates in equal numbers — thirty-five 
in all. The list of the delegates is correctly given by Col- 
lins ; Colonel Samuel McDowell again presided, and Thomas 
Todd was secretary. The convention met on the 17th of 
September, the day iixed bylaw. It was again quickly 
and unanimously resolved to be " expedient for the good 
people of the district, that it should be separated from the 
rest of tlie state upon the terms and conditions prescribed 
by law." An address to Congress, couched in respectful 
language and requesting the admission into the Union of 
the new state to be erected, under the name of Kentucky, 
was adopted. The time when the authority of Virginia 
should end was fixed as the 31st of December, 1788. Pro- 
vision was made for the election of members to a con- 
vention authorized to frame a constitution for the new 
state. And the members of the Assembly from the dis- 
trict were requested to use their efibrts with that body to 
have an inliabitant of the district chosen as one of the 
Virginia delegation to Congress. The convention, having 
fully and satisfactorily discharged all the duties devolved 
on its members, then adjourned, after a brief session 
which had been as peaceable as the elections at which 
those members were chosen had been orderly. Wilkinson 
was in ISTew Orleans. John Brown was not a delegate. 
Whether he had gone to Virginia before the meeting of 
the convention, in order to resume his long vacant seat in 
the State Senate, as intimated bv Marshall; or whether 



delegates to lay before the General Assembly such transactions as have 
taken place respecting the cession of the western navigation. 

Ordered, That Messrs. Thruston, Henry, Nicholas, Fisher, Harrison, 
Meriwether, Smith, Dawson, Monroe, Lawson, Corbin and JMason be 
appointed a committee to prepare instructions pursuant to the said 
resolutions. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 119 

he delayed bis journey until after the convention had 
formulated the request that a member of Congress should 
be chosen from the district, and then went on to secure 
that position for himself, can not now be determined. 
(The Assembly met October 15th, and Brown was in his 
seat October 23, 1787, on which day he was elected to 
Congress.) Judge Muter had drawn back from the preci- 
pice. And Sebastian and Junes, in the absence of Wilk- 
inson and Brown, made no sign. 



120 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER YIII. 



James Wilkinson — Looks to a Separation from the Union, and an 
Alliance with Great Britain or with Spain — If He Fails with 
One, Determines to Negotiate with the Other — Two Strings 
to His Bow — His Expedition to New Orleans in 1787 — His En- 
gagement WITH MiRO and Promise to Separate Kentucky from 
THE Union and to Subject Her People to Spain — The True 
Consideration for His Exclusive Commercial Privilege — The 
Utter Selfishness op Wilkinson in the Negotiations — The 
Misrepresentatio:ks and Suppressions of Colonel John Mason 
Brown. 



From his advent in Kentucky in 1784, as the active rep- 
resentative of a Philadelphia mercantile association, no 
man in the district exerted a more extended nor a more 
corrupting influence in its public affairs than General 
James Wilkinson. Slightly under the average height, his 
form was yet a model of symmetry and grace, and his 
manly and dignified carriage at once attracted the atten- 
tion of every observer. If his brilliantly handsome face 
won instant admiration, his gracious manners no less 
pleased and invited confidence. While fitted by native tal- 
ents to move in the most refined circles of American society, 
he yet possessed and exerted all the arts which secure the 
favor of the multitude and excite the enthusiastic admira- 
tion of the vulgar. His command of language enabled 
him with ease to give to his ideas a forceful expression, 
while his full and musical voice was pleasant to the auditor. 
With an ardent and mercurial temperament, the fire of 
which was easily communicated to others, his gesticu- 
lation was at once animated and studied. With these 
genuine qualities of an orator, he had all the tricks of a 
popular Reclaimer. As a writer he had precisely that 
order of talent which was most effective at the time and 



The Spani^th Conspiracy. 121 

with those to whom his literary effusions were addressed* 
Dealing largely in exaggeration, yet most skillful in sup- 
pressions and in muddying the waters, his defense of him- 
self before the court-martials which tried him in 1808 and 
afterwards, was more adroit, and not less ingenuous than 
that made for his friend and coadjutor in intrigue, John 
Brown, in the " Political Beginnings." With real capacity 
for military command and love for the "pomp and circum- 
stance of war," he was fertile in resources, invincible in 
energy, and courageous in battle. Constantly asserting 
the integrity of his own motives, and boasting of his own 
love of truth, as well as of glory, lie Avas not slow to 
resent, by an appeal to the duello, if need were, any im- 
peachment of his honor. And yet he was probably as 
utterly destitute of all real honor, as venal, as dishonest, 
and as faithless as any man that ever lived. His selfish- 
ness was supreme, and his self-indulgence boundless, while 
his knowledge of all that is mean and corrupt in mankind 
seemed intuitive. With an ambition that was at once 1 
vaulting and ever restless, and a vanity that was imnieas- 1 
urable, to gratify the one and to offer incense to the other, \ 
he did not scruple to pander to the vices of his fellows, 
to excite their cupidity, and to tempt them to treason. An 
inappeasible craving for the adulation of the sycophantic 
impelled him to the most prodigal expenditures to sup- 
port an immodest hospitality and a vainglorious state, to 
which his ruined fortune was inadequate; he plunged 
heavily into debt and was then careless of his obligations; 
and to the pecuniary losses his extravagance occasioned to 
others he was indifferent. 



* Colonel John Mason Brown's estimate of Wilkinson's style as 
"turgid," differs widely from that expressed by his grandfather and 
Innes of the literary attainments and talents of the friend who so far 
outshone them. Of his memorial to the Spanish Intendant of Louisi- 
ana, Littell's " Narrative," which Brown and Innes adopted as their 
own defense, as it was also equally one of Wilkinson and Sebastain, 
says: "This memorial was much admii-ed by the liferary gentlemen 
present in the convention for its dignified sUjle, the copious and compre- 
hensive view which was taken of the subject, the elegance of the eam- 
position, and its peculiar adaptation to work upon the fears and avarice 
of the Spaniard." 



122 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

The Maryland family from which James Wilkinson 
sprang was in every way respectable. To prepare him 
for the practice of medicine he was well educated. Pre- 
ferring the career of arms opened to the aspiring by the 
Revolution, he entered the American service before he 
had attained his majority, and by activity, address, and 
really valuable services rose to the position of clothier 
general, with the rank of a Brigadier. His name figured 
more conspicuously than pleasantly in the scandals which 
ruined Conway, and left a taint upon the fame of Horatio 
Gates. His patrimonial estate, which was never large, 
having been entirely dissipated before he came to Ken- 
tucky, his avowed object in removing to the west was 
here to regain what he had squandered in tha east. On 
arriving in Kentucky he immediately encouraged the 
production of tobacco, for which there could be no mar- 
ket except in Louisiana, or by the outlet of the Missis- 
sippi's mouth. A native of Maryland, he had none of 
that reverence and filial aftection for Virginia which so 
many of her sons in the wilderness cherished ; nor, as 
events demonstrated, was his love for the Union whose 
uniform he had worn strong enough to prevent his dis- 
honorable descent to the position of a stipendiary of 
Spain in an intrigue for its dismemberment. It has been 
seen that the rejection of the temperate address to the 
General Assembly, which had been adopted by its prede- 
cessor, by the convention of August, 1785, as well as the 
substitution therefor of one breathing a different spirit, 
and of which he was the author, were induced by his in- 
fluence ; that the address to the people, of which he was 
also the author, which was adopted by the same conven- 
tion, was well calculated to excite and inflame ; and then, 
when the Assembly, instead of simply declaring and rec- 
ognizing the independence and sovereignty of Kentucky, 
as his address had rather demanded than requested, made 
the separation of the district from Virginia and its erec- 
tion into a state to depend upon the previous assent of 
Congress and its reception into the Union, he vehemently 
urged an immediate assumption of that independence and 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 123 

sovereignty contrary to the law. When, in January, 1787, 
the Assembly postponed the time of the separation, be- 
cause the time remaining was not sufficient for the action 
deemed necessary for obtaining the expression of the will 
of the people, and the subsequent consent of Congress, and 
the admission of the new state into the Union, by June 1, 
1787, he was the most open and violent in his expressions 
of chagrin, in his denunciations of the Assembly, and in 
his expressions of contempt for Congress. 

Having previously gathered all the tobacco, flour and 
bacon, he could buy with his own slender means,* or with 
borrowed money, or on credit, and having shipped them 
on flat-boats to I^ew Orleans, in June, 1787, he soon fol- 
lowed his cargoes. His own letter to Gardoqui, written 
some months later,t is witness that " having nothing to 
hope from the Union" he had, before starting upon this 
expedition, deliberately determined to seek the '■'■patron- 
age " of Spain as a means of relieving his impecuniosity, 
of proposing the schemes which were agreed upon with 
Miro; and, if they were rejected by the Spaniard, of then 
" opening a negotiation with Great Britain, which had 
already been active in the matter." Whether the agita- 
tions he had industriously fermented, and the revolution- 
ary measures he had audaciously advocated in Kentucky, 
were designed as the mere preliminaries to prepare an 
easy way for success in the schemes in which he immedi- 
ately engaged ; and whether the subject had been discussed 
between Innes and others and Wilkinson when the letter 
to Randolph predicting an early " Revolt from the Union," 
was written, are less important inquiries than it is to as- 
certain what those schemes actually were in their incep- 
tion and progress. 

The scheme to separate the west from the rest of the 
United States, wliich was subsequently adopted by Spain, 

* The statement of Colonel Brown that he had in the brief three 
years of his residence in Kentucky already made an independent for- 
tune, is a very great mistake. 

T Wilkinson's letter to Don Gardoqui, January 1, 1789, Gayarre's 
History of Louisiana, Spanish Domination, page 249. 



124 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

was, as early as January 1, 1784, hinted to Arthur O'lSTeil, 
the Spanish Governor of Pensacola, hy Alexander Mc- 
Gillivray, a half-breed Indian, who united in himself the 
talents of a warrior, of a diplomat, and of a statesman.* 
Warned by the contemplated movement of Green and 
Clark the previous fall, Navarro, then the accomplished 
Intendant of Louisiana, on the 12th of February, 1787, 
wrote to his government that the enemies to be feared 
were not the English, but the Americans, who must be 
" opposed by active and sufficient measures ;" and to this 
end urged the encouragement of immigration to Louisiana, 
by the removal of restrictions upon her commerce, and the 
promotion of her industries. " The only way to check 
them," he wrote, " is with a proportionate .population, and 
it is not by imposing commercial restrictions that this pop- 
ulation is to be acquired, but by granting a prudent exten- 
sion and freedom of trade."! I^^ furtherance of the policy 
thus urged upon his court, Governor Miro, in the spring 
of 1787, had " somewhat relaxed in the restrictions upon 
the river trade, and had granted permission to a number 
of American families to settle in Louisiana. "J The regu- 
lations which restricted the commerce of Louisiana to a 
trade with Spain only would soon have depopulated the 
province ; and, therefore, infractions of those restrictions 
had been winked at by the colonial government, " and for 
some time a lucrative trade, had been carried on, not only 
on the Mississippi, but also, and principally, with the city 
of Philadelphia."§ But, suddenly, Gardoqui severely rep- 
rimanded Navarro, whom he " forced to proceed to the 
harshest measures," which occasioned great distress 
among the citizens of Louisiana. General Wilkinson, 
who had friends and correspondents, if not partners, 
among the Philadelphians in New Orleans, anticipated but 
trill i no- obstacles to the success of his venture. An inter- 



* Gayarre's Louisiana, Spanish Domination, page 158. 
t Gayarre, pages 182-3. Colonel Brown omits this from his extract on 
page 93. 

X Ibid., page 185. 
§ Ibid., page 185. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 125 

terview witli Governor Miro secured a speedy revocation 
of the order which had been issued to seize Wilkinson's 
cargoes, Wilkinson was permitted to sell his produce free 
of duty, and was hospitably entertained by the Spanish 
officials. These unusual attentions, and his growing inti- 
macy with the proud Spaniards, excited wondering com- 
ment. Besides the exemptions from seizure and duty then 
granted him, an arrangement for future shipments was 
made with Miro, not only of his own merchandise, but of 
that of his friends, which should be shipped in Wilkin- 
son's boats. This official permission he carried back to 
Kentucky ; it was renewed the following year and again 
in 1790. And to relieve his immediate necessities, Daniel 
Clark, Sr., was induced by the Intendant iSTavarro to 
advance the adventurer $3,000. ^ 

During the administrations of Washington and Adams 
the conduct of Wilkinson excited the suspicions of 
those executives. At his solicitation, Daniel Clark, Junior, 
— a nephew of Daniel Clark, Senior, — who at the time of 
Wilkinson's intercourse with Miro was employed in the 
secretary's office at Kew Orleans, and who, when his repre- 
sentations were made, was a Spanish subject, and, as such, 
was interested in concealing from the government of the 
United States the real character of that intercourse ; — this 
man w^as induced by Wilkinson to address a memorial to Sec- 
retary Pickering, representing that the privileges granted to 
Wilkinson were extorted from the fears of Miro, to whose 
apprehension of an invasion from Kentucky, it was alleged, 
he had successfully appealed. Afterwards, when Louis- 
iana had passed into the possession of the United States, 
and was represented in Congress by Clark, whose duties 
had changed with his altered allegiance and position ; 
finding that Wilkinson, who was then in command of the 
army, maintained his corrupt relations with Spain, Daniel 
Clark presented to Congress a sworn statement, in which 
he alleged that those privileges were granted to Wilkin- 
son in consideration of his undertaking to separate Ken- 
tucky from the Union and bring her under the sovereignty 
or protection of Spain ; that Wilkinson became a pen- 



126 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

sioner of Spain, and continued to receive a pension from 
that power long after he had re-entered the army of the 
United States ; and he specified the times and pLaces at 
which Wilkinson had received various sums, the amount 
of which he named, in payment of that pension. Charges 
formulated in accordance with this statement were pre- 
ferred against Wilkinson, who was tried upon them by 
court-martial in 1808. He was successful in impeaching 
the testimony of Clark, by producing in rebuttal the 
apparently conflicting statements of the memorial which, 
at his importunity, Clark had addressed to Pickering a 
few years before. He impeached the evidence of Thomas 
Power, another important witness against him, by showing 
a similar discrepancy between it and a previous statement 
he had cajoled from Power. In his own behalf Wilkin- 
son did not scruple to insinuate that he had obtained the 
valuable privileges of trade by corrupting Miro and other 
Spanish officials. That his relations with the Spanish 
government, in the sale of tobacco directly to that gov- 
^ernment, had ceased before he re-entered the army ; and 
that the sums it was proved he had received while holding 
a commission from the United States, were balances due him 
on all old and legitimate commercial transactions. '' And 
Oliver Pollock, who was an intimate of Wilkinson, and, 
possibly, associated with him in his ventures ; — Oliver Pol- 
lock, whose relations with the Spaniards was known to have 
been so confidential that it was assumed he would cer- 
tainly have known had any pension been paid to Wilkin- 
son, and yet from whom Miro carefully concealed his 
negotiations with that adventurer ; * — Oliver Pollock tes- 
tified in behalf of his friend, that he did not know of such 
a pension, and from his intimacy with the Spaniards he 
thought he would have known it had one been paid. On 
the contrary, he said, he had it from Miro himself, that 
"he had consented for General Wilkinson to bring down 
tobacco in hopes to pacify the Kentuckians and people of 
the western country, to prevent a rupture between Spain 



Miro's dispatch to Valdes, November 3, 1788, Gayarre, page 222. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 127 

and America, and in order to give time for negotiations 
between the two powers relative to the navigation of tlie 
Mississippi." Had this testimony been given in good 
faith, and had Miro been partly influenced by a wish to 
avoid hostilities from Kentucky, tlie fact would not have 
been at all inconsistent with his undoubted desire also to 
separate Kentucky from the Union, and that Wilkinson 
made a treasonable engagement to aid him in that enter- 
prise. The court-martial acquitted Wilkinson on the 
ground that, whatever might have been the relations be- 
tween Wilkinson and Spain before he re-entered the army, 
they had no jurisdiction to inquire into nor to punish him 
therefor. That his commercial relations had ceased before 
he went into the army. That, as he had made sales of 
tobacco to the Spanish government before he became an 
ofiicer of the United States, the natural presumption was, 
that the sums which had been paid him were in liquidation 
of debts due to him on account of his previous commer- 
cial transactions. And so he was acquitted. Clark and 
Power were both discredited by their own previous state- 
ments. It was impossible for them at that time to clear 
the waters which Wilkinson muddied by documentary 
evidence sufficient to convince a court which had been or- 
ganized in Wilkinson's favor. Yet his treason has been 
since established by his own letters so clearly that no one 
is so hardy as to deny it ; that he was for years a Spanish 
pensioner has been indisputably proved ; the entire scope 
and tenor of Clark's testimony against him, except as to 
the date when the pension commenced, have been abso- 
lutely confirmed ; and that he was correct even as to the 
date is abundantly supported by other facts. 

Wilkinson remained in ISTew Orleans during the months 
of July and August, 1787, and in September made his way 
home by waj^ of the gulf and ocean. While there he con- 
certed with Miro a memorial addressed to the latter, but 
really intended for the Court of Madrid, to whom it was 
immediately forwarded. Its exact terms have never been 
made public. They probably diifered in some expressions, 
if not in material respects, from the alleged copy, which 



128 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

was exhibited by Wilkinson on his return to Kentucky, 
which he read in the Danville Convention of November, 
1788, and the composition of which the " literary gentle- 
men " of that Convention thought so " elegant." The 
copy of the memorial which was read in the Convention 
was not handed in at the clerk's table for inspection by 
the members, but was retained by its author. It was not 
published at the time. The only report of it was made by 
Colonel Thomas Marshall, who had read it and who heard it 
read, and wrote an account of it to Genaral Washington. In 
his letter to Miro, February 12, 1789, Wilkinson assured him 
that " in order to elicit an unequivocal proof of the dis- 
positions of that assembly (the Convention) I submitted 
to its examination my original memorial and the joint 
answer of yourself and Navarro," and that he had re- 
ceived the unanimous thanks of that body in approbation 
of his conduct. On the 11th of April, Miro forwarded this 
letter of Wilkinson to Madrid, with his comments, in 
which he spoke of the boldness of Wilkinson's act in pre- 
senting this memorial to the Convention, and continued : 
" In so doing, he has so completely bound himself, that, 
should he not be able to obtain the separation of Kentucky 
fro7n the United States, it has become impossible for him to 
live in it, unless he has suppressed, which is possible, certain 
passages, which might injure him."* It sufficiently appears 
from this, that the memorial committed Wilkinson to the 
separation of Kentucky from tlie Union, and invoked the 
aid of Spain ; and to that length the copy read by him in 
the Convention undoubtedly went. 

The nature of Wilkinson's arrangement still further 
appears in the letter of Miro to Valdes, of January 8th, 
1788, already quoted, in which he says : " The delivering 
up of Kentucky into his majesty's hands, which is the 
main object to which Wilkinson has promised to devote himself 
entirely, would forever constitute this province a rampart 
for the protection of New Spain." The western people 



Gayarre, page 254. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 129 

Avould no longer have any inducement to emigrate, if they 
were put in possession of a free trade with us. This is the 
reason why this privilege should be granted only to a few 
individuals having influence among them, as is suggested in 
Wilkinson'' s memorial, because on their seeing the advan- 
tages-bestowed on those few, they might he easily persuaded 
to acquire the like by becoming Spanish subjects."'^ Every 
official report made by Miro to his government incontesti- 
bly demonstrates that his understanding of the arrange- 
ment made with Wilkinson was, that the latter would 
devote himself to the task of separating Kentucky from 
the Union. 

On the other hand, the letters from Wilkinson to Miro 
furnish proof equally strong, that the understanding of 
the former in reference to the part he was to play did not 
differ from that of the Spaniard. Their minds had com- 
pletely met. By one of his boats which reached Xew 
Orleans in April, 1788, Wilkinson wrote Miro and 
Navarro of his safe arrival home, and that " all my predic- 
tions are verifying themselves, and not a measure is taken 
on both sides, of the ynountains which does not conspire to fa cor 
ours ;" which a man of a far less sanguine temperament 
might well have believed. On the 13th of May, 1788, 
Wilkinson wrote to Miro and Navarro a letter which fully 
discloses his construction of his bargain. From it this is 
an extract : 

" On the first day of January of the next year, 1789, by mutual con- 
sent, this district will cease to be subjected to the jurisdiction of Virginia.. 
It has been stipulated, it is true, as a nesessary condition of our inde- 
pendenc'e, that this territory be acknowledged an independent State by 
Congress, and be admitted as such into the Federal Union. But a con- 
vention has already been called to form the constitution of this section 
of the country, and I am persuaded that no action on the part of Con- 
gress will ever induce this people to abandon the plan which they have 
adopted, although I have recent intelligence that Congress will, beyond 
a doubt, recognize us as a sovereign State. The convention, of which I 
have spoken, will meet in July. I will, in the meantime, inquire into 
the prevailing opinions, and shall be able to ascertain the extent of the 
influence of the members elected. When this is done, after having 



•■■'GavaiTe, page 199. 
' 9 



130 The Spanish Consinracy . 

previously come to an understanding with two or three individuals ca- 
pable of assisting me, I shall disclose so much of our great scheme as 
may appear opportune, according to circumstances, and I have no 
doubt but that it will meet with a favorable reception; because al- 
though I have been communicative with no more than two individuals, 
I have sounded many, and whenever it has seemed expedient to me to 
make known your answer to my memorial, it has caused the keenest 
satisfaction. Colonel Alexiinder Scott Bullitt and Hary Innes, our attor- 
ney-general, are the only individuals to whom I have entrusted our 
views, and in case of any mishap befalling me before tJieir accomplishment 
you may, in perfect security, address yourselves to these gentlemen, whose. polit- 
ical designs agree entirely with yours. Thus, as soon as the new govern- 
ment shall be organized and adopted by the people, they will proceed 
to elect a governor, the members of the legislative body, and other 
officers, and I doubt not but that they will name a political agent to treat of 
the affair in which we are engaged, and I think that all this will be done by 
the month of March next. In the meantime, I hope to receive your 
orders, which 1 will do my utmost to execute. I do not anticipate any 
obstacle from Congress, because, under the present federal compact, that body 
can neither dispose of men nor money, and the new government, should it 
establish itself, will have to encounter difficulties which will keep it 
weak for three or four years, before the expiration of which, I have good 
grounds to hope, that we shall have completed our negotiations, and 
shall have become too strong to be subjected by any force which may be sent 
against us." [Gayarre, pages 209-10.] 

On the 15th of June, 1788, Miro sent to Madrid a copy 
of Wilkinson's letter. From the observations with which 
he accompanied that letter, the following is an extract; 
the major referred to in which extract was Isaac Dunn, 
the confidential agent of Wilkinson, and who was in charge 
of his boats and their cargoes, viz.: 

" This major confirms all of Wilkinson's assertions, and gives it out as 
certain that, next year, after the meeting of the first assemblies in which 
Kentucky will act as an independent State, slie ivill separate entirely from 
the Federal Union; he further declares that he has come to this conclu- 
sion from conversations among the most distinguished citizens of that 
State ; that the direction of the rivers which run in front of their dwellings points 
clearly to the power to which they ought to ally tliemselves, but he declares that 
he is ignorant of the terms on which this alliance will be proposed." 
[Gayarre, page 212.] 

It seems also from a letter of McGillivray, the half- 
breed, to Miro, which the latter forwarded at the same 
time, and the statements in which are unfortunately 
fully confirmed by letters from John Sevier to Miro, that 
delegates from Tennessee had assured him that the peo- 
ple of that section, as well as those of Kentucky, were 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 131 

ready "to throw themselves into the arms of his majesty," 
and were " determined to free themselves from their de- 
pendence on Congress, because that body can not protect 
either their persons or their property, or favor their com- 
merce, and they therefore believe that they owe no obedi- 
ence to a power which is incapable of benefiting them." 
The sentiment is closely akin to that of Hary Innes' letter 
to Randolph. Extracts might be multiplied almost in- 
definitely, to show not only the bargain of Wilkinson, 
but that a well defined purpose existed on the part of 
many to " Bevolt from the Union ;" but enough has been 
presented to satisfy the reader of the existence of that 
purpose. In the spring of 1788, Navarro left for Spain. 

In his last official dispatch he renewed his solemn warn- 
ings of the danger to the Spanish domination in Louis- 
iana and Mexico which proceeded from the restless am- 
bition and activity of their American neighbors. The 
remedy he suggested and urged, and the application of 
which he deemed not very difficult if the propitious cir- 
cumstances then existing were promptly utilized, was a 
separation of the west from the Union. The means by 
which this could be done were, by " granting every sort of 
commercial privileges to the masses in the western region, 
and showering pensions upon their leaders!'' The accom- 
plished Gayarre states, that this dispatch '• produced a 
deep impression at Madrid, and confirmed the government 
of Spain in the policy which it had begun to pursue.'' 
Whether Wilkinson was bribed by the direct payment or 
promise of a pension in money from the inception of his 
engagement with Miro, or received his pecuniary compen- 
sation at first in the shape of exceptional trade privileges 
and in the price paid by the Spanish government for his 
tobacco, is a matter into which it is unimportant to in- 
quire. The relative degrees of turpitude in the two 
modes of corruption may well be left to casuists to deter- 
mine. His own letters indelibly stamp his scheme as 
treasonable and his motives as wholly selfish and mer- 
cenary. 

That Colonel John Mason Brown was fully conversant 



132 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

with all the details of the correspondence between Wilk- 
inson and the Spanish officials, as well as with the repre- 
sentations made by the latter to their court at Madrid, is 
made apparent by the note at the bottom of page 20 of 
his Frankfort Centennial Address, in which, after refer- 
ring to the " representations of the Spanish officials to 
their government," as given in Gayarre, he says : " That 
work [Gayarre) has been freely consulted and used in the 
preparation of this address." From his citations from 
these " representations," and from other parts of Gayarre, 
however, he carefully excluded every sentence concerning 
this scheme which had been concocted by Wilkinson with 
Navarro and Miro. On page 7 of that address, Wilkin- 
son's " grossly improper conduct, while holding the highest 
military command, and his receipt of money from the Spanish 
authorities," are admitted. But the fact that, befoi-e he 
had any military command, and contemporaneously with 
securing the trade permit, (his address in obtaining which 
is admiringly dwelt upon by Colonel Brown,) Wilkinson 
entered into a conspiracy with the Spaniards to separate 
Kentucky from the Union and to subject her to Spain, 
and that the two were evidently parts of the same nego- 
tiation, is scrupulously concealed from the readers of that 
eloquent oration. Immediately following a statement of 
Wilkinson's return to the army in the latter part of 1791, 
Colonel Brown, on page 14 of his address, says: " It is 
to be deplored that he did not, in forsaking civil life, 
abandon totally his commerce with the Spaniard ; for 
holding to the mercantile relations proper enough in his ciril 
days, he wrecked his name and fame and fortunes in a 
dishonorable intrigue. When the crime of a high mili- 
tary officer can be extenuated only on the plea that he lied, 
and that he deceived the foreigner whose gold he took, 
palliation is impossible." Again, on page 16 of the ad- 
dress. Colonel Brown says : " Wilkiiison's moral downfall 
was of a later date," [than his appointment to the army in 
1791], " his disgraceful attitude as a stipendiary of the 
Spanish king was not assumed until 1797, most probably." 
Disentangled from the ambiguity in which his meaning is 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 133 

ingeniously cloaked, the orator could only have intended 
to convey to his auditors the impression, that, prior to 
Wilkinson's return to the army in 1791, his relations with 
Miro were strictly commercial, were " proper enough," 
and were innocent ; that the sole impropriety in his con- 
duct was in continuing, after he had become a soldier, the 
mercantile relations with Miro, which were innocent so 
long as he remained a civilian ! And while writing this. 
Colonel Brown had before his eyes the evidence in Wilk- 
inson's own letters, that the latter had, four years before 
he re-entered the army, made an engagement with Miro 
to devote his time to an effort to separate Kentucky from 
the Union, and that the mercantile privileges extended to 
him were granted in consideration of that pledge? The 
manifest injustice that would be done to Colonel Brown 
in one direction by assuming that he intended to say, that 
a scheme to dismember the Union, though dishonorable 
in an officer, was " proper enough" in a civilian, and as all 
intimations of the nature of Wilkinson's engagements at 
that time are excluded from the address, forces into prom- 
inence the disagreeable alternative, that he intended to 
deny in that address the facts of which he had distinct 
knowledge and irrefutable proof. But, in his ^'■Political 
Beginnings'' (page 71) the same talented author admits 
that, in 1787, when Wilkinson obtained his trade permit, 
" he began with Miro an intrigue that fully committed 
him to Spain ;" — which is as true as it is that Colonel 
Brown knew it very well when, failing to state the fact to 
his auditors at Frankfort, he suavely informed them that 
Wilkinson's " moral downfall was of a later date " than 
1791. The reconciliation of the two statements with each 
other, and with that "historic veracity" of which Colonel 
Brown writes in the " Political Beginnings," is left to 
those whose talents are competent to the task. 

On his return from ISTew Orleans to Kentucky, Wilkin- 
son called at Mt. Vernon, on the 7th of December, 1787. 
Finding his former commander solicitous for the adoption 
of the " new plan," he informed Washington that North 
Carolina (through which he had passed) was "unanimous 



134 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

for the adopting"* the constitution; which was very, 
very far from true. In February, 1788, he reached Ken- 
tucky. The morning after his arrival at his home in 
Fayette he dispatched a messenger with a letter to Hary 
Innes, who then resided in Danville, and who, the next 
day, returned with the messenger to Wilkinson's home. 
Shortly after reaching Wilkinson's, Mr. Innes went 
with him into a room apart from the other guests, 
and there held a long and confidential consultation with 
[his host.f What the nature of the conversation between 
them, that could not be had in the hearing of Charles Scott 
and the other guests, was, may be inferred from Wilkin- 
son's statement in his letter to Miro (May 15, 1788), that 
while he had sounded many, yet " Colonel Alexander Scott 
Bullitt and Hary Innes, our attorney general, are the only 
individuals to whom I have intrusted pur views, and, in 
case of any mishap befalling me before their accomplish- 
ment, you may, in perfect security, address yourselves to 
these gentlemen, whose p)olitical designs agree entirely with 
yours^'X Certainly there was not one of his intimates to 
whom he would more naturally have communicated his 
engagements with Miro, than to the signer of the call 
for the Convention of May, 1787, who had, in July of that 



* Sparks, Vol. IX., page 288. 

t In the case of Innes v. Marshall, Eichard Thomas deposed that he 
had gone with Wilkinson on his trading expedition in 1787 as far as the 
Chickasaw Bluffs, and then returned to Kentucky with a letter from 
Wilkinson to his wife, and remained at Wilkinson's until the latter 
returned, in the Winter of 1788. " That on the evening of the day on 
which General Wilkinson returned he got the deponent to get ready to 
carry a letter for him next morning over the Kentucky river to Hary 
Innes, who then lived in the town of Danville, and furnished him with 
a horse and gave him a half sovereign as compensation and to bear 
expenses. This deponent further says that he went to Mr. Innes' with 
a letter to give him from General Wilkinson, which he delivered to said 
Innes. That Innes kept the deponent with him that night, and was 
busy writing a great part of the night, and next morning made an early 
start with the deponent back to General Wilkinson's, where he (Innes) 
was received by General Wilkinson, and shortly after they two went 
into a room together, leaving General Scott and several other gentlemen 
with the deponent drinking some spirits in the common room or hall." 

X Gayarre, page 209. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 135 

year, written to Gov. Randolph, that, " in a few years, this 
western countr}^ will Revolt from the Union," and who, in 
1806, struck those significant words out of what he vouched 
for as a true copy of what he had written. A short time after 
this conversation, ahout the 1st of March, 1788, Innes ap- 
plied to Joshua Barbee, of Danville, to know if he would 
descend the Mississippi for General Wilkinson ; and, Barbee 
consenting, he was employed, together with Richard 
Thomas, by Wilkinson, to carry dispatches to Miro, and 
to the commandant at ISTatchez, and a letter to Daniel 
Clarke. The dispatches were placed in a trnnk, which 
was weighted with rocks, with orders to sink the trunk in 
case there should be any danger of its contents falling into 
the hands of parties other than those to whom they were 
directed, and for Barbee to deliver these with his own 
hands.* Barbee and Thomas were kept in ignorance of 
the nature of the dispatches to Miro, and, in his suit 
against Humphrey Marshall an attempt was made by 
Innes to have it appear that it related simply to Wilkin- 
son's commercial ventures ; but it was really the letter in 
which Wilkinson gave Miro information that all things 
were conspiring to insure the success of their intrigues, 
and which was forwarded by J^avarro and Miro to Madrid 
in their dispatch of the 11th of April, 1788. 

On the 15th of May, Wilkinson again wrote, by Major 
Isaac Dunn, who was in command of the boats containing 
the second of his cargoes, stating his confident expectation 
that, though the law of Virginia consenting to the separa- 
tion stipulated, as a necessary condition of the independ- 
ence to be granted, that the district should first be ac- 
knowledged by Congress as independent, yet that no ac- 
tion Congress might take would ever induce the people to 
abandon the " plan," which he represented that they had 
" adopted ; " and assuring Miro, that so soon as the consti- 
tution should be framed by the convention to meet in July, 
and the government of the new state should be organized 
by the election of the officers, f '■ -^ doubt not hut that they 

* Gayarre, page 206. 
tibid., page 209. 



136 The Spardsh Conspiracy/. 

will name a political agent with power to treat of the affair in 
which we are engaged.^' That the mercurial and sanguine 
Wilkinson actually anticipated, and had only too good 
reason to hope, that this result would he attained, all the 
evidence tends to establish ; and that he faithfully tried to 
accomplish it, and, so far as he dared, fulfilled his bargain 
with the Spaniard, is certain. His statement in a private 
letter to Miro, that " he, (Wilkinson) flattered himself 
with the prospect of his being the delegate of his state to 
present to me (Miro) the propositions offered by his country- 
men, and that he hopes to embrace me in April next,'' which 
was duly communicated to his court by Miro, was as 
honest a declaration as ever came from the lips or pen of 
the needy and unscrupulous adventurer. 

D' Arges, who had " received instructions from Gardoqui 
and the Count of Florida Blanca, one of the members of 
the cabinet of Madrid, to do all in his power to secure the 
dismemberment of the American Union," had gone to 
New Orleans to solicit aid from Miro, who prevented him 
from proceeding to Kentucky, in order that, as he ex- 
plained to his court, the vanity of Wilkinson might not 
be wounded by the discovery that a rival was engaged in 
the same enterprise, and might snatch from him the re- 
wards of success. In the meantime every facility was 
afibrded by Miro to Wilkinson, not only to ship his 
tobacco to ]!!Tew Orleans, but also for the purchase of 
merchandise there and its shipment on boats to Kentucky ; 
" because," as he explained to his court, " it is exceedingly 
important that the western people should see, before declaring 
themselves for a change of domination, that the true channel 
through which they have to be supplied with the objects 
of their wants, in exchange for their own productions, is 
the Mississippi." He wrote, as he stated to his govern- 
ment, to Wilkinson not to sell his goods for more than 
they cost him in New Orleans, " because it is highly im- 
portant that this first essay should inspire the inhabitants 
of Kentucky with the most flattering hopes. I have good 
reasons to expect that the arrival of the boats will produce 
the most agreeable sensation among those people, and will 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 137 

make them feel more keenly that their felicity depends on 
the concession of such commercial facilities by his majesty, 
and for the acquisition of which I conceive there are but 
few sacrifices which they would not make."* 

Wilkinson himself, in order to impress the people of the 
district with the advantages of a change of political rela- 
tions, not less than from a natural love of vainglory, as- 
•sumed increased magnificence in his equipage and stylish 
living, dwelt profusely upon the advantage of navigating 
the Mississippi and of a commercial connection with 
Louisiana, with broad hints to the public, " that nothing 
was necessary to bring it about but separation from Vir- 
ginia and the independence of Kentucky." f The effect 
of this upon the minds of a people who had been carefully 
instructed that Jay had wanted to abandon the rights to 
navigate the river, that Congress would not procure this 
commerce for Kentucky ; but that now General Wilkinson 
had opened up the one and secured the other /or them : was 
to make Wilkinson the idol of the hour, and to direct 
popular clamor, prejudice and hate against the few who 
were bold enough to express their convictions, that, be- 
hind all these favors granted to Wilkinson, there must 
needs be designs other than commercial and which boded 
no good to the public peace. In the midst of all this 
laudation of Wilkinson the fact, that the privileges of 
commerce with the Spaniard which he had secured were 
limited to himself, was apparently ignored ; and if it was 
suggested that an individual could scarcely obtain fran- 
chises for his private benefit, which all the efiorts of Con- 
gress had been unavailing to obtain for the western people, 
without committing himself in some occult way to the 
power granting the favors, there were champions always 
at hand to attribute such suspicions to jealousy of a man 
whose energy equaled his popularity. 

The elections for members of the convention to frame a 
constitution, which had been authorized by the assembly 



* Gayarre, page 220. 

t Marshall, Vol. I, page 283. 



138 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

to be done, provided Congress sbonld previously give their 
assent to the separation and to the reception of Kentucky 
as an independent member of the confederation, were heUl 
even while all the bells were ringing the praises of the 
most perfidious of traitors. Wilkinson himself, his inti- 
mate friend, Innes, Caleb Wallace, and Sebastian, whom 
Wilkinson had completely captured before the meeting of 
the convention, were all elected as members. John 
Brown, who had been sent to Congress, and who did not 
return to Kentucky until the following September, was 
not a member of the convention of July, 1788, though his 
name is in the list published by Collins, which was evi- 
dently intended as that of the members of that body. 
Nor was Muter, who had removed from Danville and was 
for a time relieved from a malign influence, a member 
thereof. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 139 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Necessity for a More Perfect Union and a Government Clothed 
WITH National Powers for National Purposes — The Efforts 
Made to Defeat the Establishment op the Government by Those 
who were Most Denunciatory of the Impotence of the Confed- 
eration — The Adoption op the Constitution — John Brown and 
his Coterie in Kentucky Opposed to the Ratification. 

There is no year more memorable in American history 
than that of 1787, durin^^ which the convention of dele- 
gates from the several States completed its great labor of 
framing the Constitution, and submitted its work to the 
separate States for ratification. The necessity for a gov- 
ernment, clothed with the power of making and the means 
to enforce laws, to take the place of the weak confedera- 
tion, which was little more than a sort of central agency y 
which could only recommend measures to the States, and 
whose labors for the commonweal were constantly 
thwarted by narrow jealousies within the States, w^iich 
frequently refused to comply with those recommendations, 
had become apparent to our statesmen. That " thirteen 
sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at 
the federal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole," was 
the gloomy prognostication of the chief whose influence 
and authority and wisdom had surmounted and counter- 
acted during the war the evils of the system which he de- 
plored. The remedy he suggested was " a liberal and 
energetic constitution " to take the place of the " lax or in- 
efficient government" of the articles of confederation. 
Perhaps the one man to whose daily experience the de- 
fects in the federal system, which threatened our experi- 
ment of republican government with an early and dis- 
graceful failure and saddened the retirement of Washing- 
ton at Mt. Vernon, were more actively brought home 
than to any other, was the able and gallant General Henry 



140 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Knox. As Secretary of War his life was made a burden 
by the applications on the one hand for protection against 
the Indians, and on the other by complaints that the 
whites were not only constantly encroaching on the In- 
dian lands — in defiance of treaties, the ink of which was 
scarcely dry — but were as continually murdering the In^ 
dians themselves. Congress could place neither men nor 
money at his disposal, and the States refused to grant him 
either, with which only he could enforce the treaties 
which secured to the Indians their lands free from molesta- 
tion on the one hand, or punish their depredations and 
aggressions against the whites on the other, and thus pro- 
tect both races. Virginia assailed him with the most 
angry expostulations because the Indians were encouraged 
to their murderous attacks upon the Virginia settlers of 
the Kentucky district, by the retention of the military 
posts in the north-west by the British ; and to his every 
representation to the British ofiicers commanding those 
posts, that their retention was a violation of the treaty en- 
tered into by their government, the curt reply was re- 
turned, that the treaty had been violated by the refusal of 
Virginia and other States to repeal their laws suspending 
the collection of debts due to British citizens. 

"While continuing to inveigh against the secretary be- 
cause the posts were held, Virginia refused to repeal the 
laws which were made the pretext for holding them; and 
the States which most loudly clamored of the inefficiency 
of the secretary, for not compelling the British to evacu- 
ate the posts which they did not surrender voluntarily, 
were precisely those which most obstinately refused him 
the means with which to comply with such demands. 

If there was any one who felt equally with Knox, the 
urgent necessity that the United States should become a 
nation, it was the honest, the incorruptible, the courage- 
ous and patriotic John Jay. He was embarrassed by many 
of the difficulties which surrounded and hampered the 
Secretary of War. Besides these he was made to feel 
those which beset his negotiations with Spain. His con- 
victions as to our right to the navigation of the Missis- 



l^he Spanish Conspiracy. 141 

sippi, and of the ultimate value and importance of that 
navigation had been asserted and remained unaltered. 
His purpose never to barter away the right was unchange- 
able. But he had no conception of the rapidity of the 
growth of the west, and, in common with others, persuaded 
himself that the navigation would be of little practical 
value for a quarter of a century. By that time, if Spain 
did not concede that right, we would be able to enforce it 
by arms. In the meantime, we were in no condition for a 
war w^ith any power. Nor could the States, upon which 
the otherwise powerless central government must rely for 
men, money, and supplies, be united in a war for such a 
purpose. Under those circumstances it was, that he sug- 
gested to Congress a treaty with Spain, limited to twenty 
or thirty years, during which time we would forbear the use 
of that navigation, by accepting which Spain would admit 
the right after that time which was claimed by implication. 
He explained that if we insisted immediately on our right 
to navigate the Mississippi, Spain would at once strengthen 
her posts on the banks of that stream, " and bid us defi- 
ance with impunity, at least until the American nation 
shall become more really and truly a nation than it is at 
present." It was in order that the strength of an united 
country, acting under a vigorous central authority, might 
be exerted to enforce this and other rights, to maintain 
peace at home and to uphold republican credit, dignity 
and honor abroad, that Washington and Adams, the 
liberty-loving Jay, the gifted Hamilton, the gallant Knox, 
and the intrepid Henry Lee, with the bulk of the veterans 
who had borne the brunt of the revolution, desired that 
"the rope of sand" should give way to a cable of iron. 

The subject of intensest anxiety with those capable and 
far-seeing patriots was, whether the instrument by which 
the central authority ceased to be a Congress to advise 
the States, and became a Government of the People, would 
be ratified by the States. For months Virginia was in 
the doubtful column. To General Knox, Washington 
wrote from Mt. Vernon of "the unfair (I might, without 
much impropriety, have made use of a harsher expression) 



142 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

conduct, which has been practiced to raise the fears and to 
inflame the minds of the people" of Virginia. "Pains 
have not been wanting," he declared, "to incnlcate a be- 
lief that the proposed general government will, without 
scruple or delay, barter away their right to the navigation 
of the Mississippi." To Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, 
he wrote : " The sentiments of Kentucky are not known 
here yet (April 20, 1788). Independent of these, the par- 
ties in this State are pretty equally balanced." Later he 
wrote to John Jay, that little doubt remained of the rati- 
fication by Virginia " if no mistake has been made with 
respect to the Kentucky members." On the 4th of June, 
Mr. Madison wrote from Richmond to Washington : " I 
dare not, however, speak with certainty as to the decision. 
Kentucky has been extremely tainted, is supposed to be gen- 
erally adverse, and every kind of address is going on pri- 
vately to work on the local interests and prejudices of that 
and other quarters." Four days after the date of Madi- 
son's letter, Washington again wrote to Mr. Jay, that the 
friends of the Constitution "express apprehension of the. 
arts that may yet be practiced to excite alarms with the 
members from the western district (Kentucky)." A week 
later he wrote to General Knox: "Much appears to de- 
pend upon the final part which the Kentucky members 
will take; into whose minds unreal dangers, respecting 
the navigation of the Mississippi have been industriously 
infused." 

The argumentative resources of Madison and of Wythe, 
of Edward Randolph and his brother-in-law, George Nich- 
olas, of John Marshall and James Breckenridge, and of 
Walter and Gabriel Jones; — the eloquence of James 
Innes, which rivaled that of Henry, — the personal influ- 
ence of Washington, operating from Mt. Vernon : were 
all needed and taxed to carry the ratification through the 
Virginia convention by the meagre majority of 89 yeas 
to 79 nays. Of the fourteen delegates from Kentucky 
only three voted for ratification ; two were silent ; and the 
others, unrelentingly hostile, gave negative votes. Among 
the last was every man upon whom Wilkinson, or Sebas- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 143 

tian, or Jobn Brown, or Hary Iiines could have wielded 
the slightest influence. The three who helped to estab- 
lish our government were Rice Bullock,* Robert Brecken- 
ridge,t and Humphrey Marshall, all revolutionary oflicers. 

* He was the ancestor of the Bullocks of Shelby county and the 
father of the wife of Richard Butler, of Carrollton ; a near relative of 
the late Waller and Edmund Bullock, of Fayette, the progenitors of a 
worthy and a sterling race ; and, more remotely a kinsman of the family 
of the same name in Mason. 

t Alexander and Eobert Breckenridge were sons of Colonel Robert 
Breckenridge, of Virginia, by his first wife. Their mother was a Miss 
Poage, daughter of the first Robert Poage, of Augusta county, sister of 
William Poage, who was killed by the Indians near Harrodsburg, and 
aunt of the late General Robert Poage, of Mason county. Their mother 
dying when they were young, and their father forming a second mar- 
riage with Letitia, daughter of John Preston and sister of Colonel Wil- 
liam Preston, Alexander and Robert Breckenridge were bound as ap- 
prentices to Francis Smith (who had married another daughter of John 
Preston) to learn from him the trade of a carpenter. They became 
capital mechanics; but, preferring the career of arms, they both en- 
tered the American army early in the Revolution, became officers, and 
made good records for themselves. After the close of the war both came 
to Kentucky, locating at first in Fayette, but settling permanently in 
Jefferson. Alexander married the widow of Colonel John Floyd, and 
was the father of the late General James D. Breckenridge, of Louisville, 
and of Captain Henry Breckenridge, who was greatly admired for his 
talents, captivating manners and personal beauty. Alexander Brecken- 
ridge was a member of the convention of 1787, and, with Humphrey 
Marshall, helped to give its proceedings a peaceful and tranquilizing 
effect. He died early and young. Robert Breckenridge, who was the 
more energetic and intellectual of the two brothers, was a member of 
the Virginia Assembly of 1788; a member of the convention which 
ratified the constitution in the same year ; a member of the convention 
which framed the first constitution of Kentucky in 1792 ; was the 
Speaker of the first House of Representatives for the State, and was 
successively re-elected to that position three times. For a short time 
he was county lieutenant for Jefferson, but seems never to have taken 
any active part in actual fighting in the west. He and his younger 
half-brother, James Breckenridge, not only voted side by side with 
John and Humphrey Marshall to ratify the Constitution, but were also 
with them in the hearty and vigorous support they all gave to the ad- 
ministration of Washington, which John Breckenridge, the able, elo- 
quent and singularly beloved half-brother of the one and full brother of 
the other, did much to embarrass. John Breckenridge was the Presi- 
dent of the Democrat Society at Lexington, and the author of the Ken- 
tucky Resolutions of 1798-9. The four Breckenridge brothers were the 
gallant offspring of a brave and honest sire. The mother of John and 



144 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

They appear to have taken no active part in the debates 
of the convention. But their votes counted in the slender 
majority, which, had they been cast adversely, would have 
been reduced to four. It has been claimed that to their 
position and influence, as western members, it Avas due 
that the proposition carried at all. The last named had, 
two years before, boldly assailed the proposition that Ken- 
tucky should assume independence and sovereignty with- 
out and against law, and without the assent of Congress, 
had checked the audacity of Wilkinson, from whom he 
forced a modilication of his position and a ridiculous 
attempt to explain away his utterances. As a member of 
the convention called by Brown, Innes, Muter and Sebas- 
tian in May, 1787, he had assisted in defeating the propo- 
sitions designed to excite the fears and to inflame the 
minds of the people; and to compel an adjournment with- 
out action of any kind. As a member of the convention 
which met in the fall of that year, he had aided in giving 
to its action a peaceful direction and tranquilizing efl:ect. 
And now, in 1788, at the aspiring age of twenty-eight 
years, with the full knowledge that the overwhelming 
mass of his immediate constituents were opposed to the 
action to which he was impelled by his own clear judg- 
ment and solemn convictions of duty, he, alone of the 
delegation from Fayette, contributed his vote and the 
whole weight of his strenuous exertions to the establish- 
ment of the government which lifted our country from 
the slough into which it had sunk in its weakness. For 
this vote he was most bitterly assailed. His own reasons 
therefor are interesting as indicating the character of the 



James, Letitia Preston, transmitted to her descendants her intellect, 
her elevated character, her comeliness and her grace. John and 
James were cousins-german to John Brown ; but they were so differ- 
ent from him in every mental, moral and physical characteristic, that 
no one would ever have suspected that one drop of kindred blood 
flowed in their veins. General Robert Breckenridge never married. 
He accumulated a large fortune, which he left to Eliza, only daughter 
of his nephew. General James D. Breckenridge, and wife of Shakes- 
peare Caldwell. 



The Spa7iish Conspiracy. 145 

man and the principles which animated liis entire public 
hfe : 

" He had participated in the scenes of the revohition— heard the want 
of power in Congress, often deplored, and witnessed its defects, as to the 
Indian afiairs, and the Union generally ; to which he was strongh^ at- 
tached ; he had also been an observer of General Wilkinson's conduct, 
which was not to be accounted for upon legitimate motives ; and he 
deemed the new constitution an improvement of the federal system — 
after hearing it ably discussed ; his own convictions he could not vio- 
late ; these taught him that he was subserving the real interests of his 
constituents— and according to these he acted ; putting to hazard and at 
naught his own popularity. Thinking withall, for his experience was 
yet in its bud, that the people possessed intelligence, and justice enough 
to perceive and applaud the propriety of the course pursued." 

Colonel John Mason Brown, in his " Political Begin- 
nings," states, that " the bent of educated opinion in Ken- 
tucky was evidently in favor of the federal constitution, 
but insisted on certain necessary, amendments;" and, that 
while Thomas Allin and Matthew Walton, two of the 
members of the " Danville Political Club" voted against 
the ratification of the constitution, " the other members 
seem to have been, without exception, zealous supporters 
of the new plan for Union and constitutional govern- 
ment." But the fiercest assailants of the constitution 
avowed themselves as favorable to " the new^ plan for 
Union and constitutional government." Tiiey found it 
more convenient to " i^isist on certain necessary amendments " 
merely, than it was to avow themselves distinctly as op- 
posed to a change from the " old plan " under w^hich ship- 
"vvreck and chaos were impending. Nevertheless, as the 
several state conventions were not agreed as to what 
amendments were " necessary," and as they had no power 
to enact any amendments whatever ; and as the only 
question presented to those conventions was whether they 
would reject the constitution as it was presented to them, 
or ratify, leaving its amendment for future action as pointed 
out in its provisions; — it inevitably resulted that those 
who " insisted on certain necessary amendments" whether 
they were sincere as Henry proved himself to be, or 
hypocritical as others were, were hostile to the constitution 
as it stood, were opposed to its ratification, and were for 
10 



146 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the rejection of " the new plan for Union and constitu- 
tional government," upon which the state conventions 
were called to act. The sagacious mind of Washington, 
which was rarely at fault, saw, " that this, (the constitu- 
tion as presented), or a dissolution of the Union, awaits 
our choice, and is the only alternative before us." To La- 
fayette he wrote his maturest conviction, that, in case the 
constitution should he rejected, and another general con- 
vention should be called, its members " would not be able 
to agree upon any system whatever," that many of the 
objections that had been urged " would operate equally 
against any efficient government that might be proposed , " 
and that there was " no alternative, no hope of alteration, 
no intermediate resting-place between the adoption of this 
and a recurrence to an unqualified state of anarchy, with 
all its deplorable consequences." 

There were some members of that " Political Club," 
who wished the constitution ratilied. But there were 
•others beside Thomas Allin and Matthew Walton, (who 
voted against the ratification,) who were in line with " the 
bent of educated opinion in Kentucky, which insisted on cer- 
tain necessary amendynents f which insistence involved the 
rejection of the constitution, taking the risk that a second 
general convention would be called, with the all but cer- 
tainty that, if ever called, it could never form a scheme of 
government upon which the discordant elements, inflamed 
by passion and prejudice, could agree. It is not to be sup- 
posed that the author of " Political Beginnings " intended 
to be understood, that his grandfather and his grand- 
father's brother, James, and their friends, Innes and 
Sebastian, who were all members of the " Political Club," 
were out of sympathy with " the bent of educated opinion 
in Kentucky." It is true, the author asserts that when 
John Brown " repaired to New York he was earnestly im- 
pressed with the wisdom and necessity of immediately 
adopting" the constitution; that John Brown was in 
cordial agreement with Madison in regard to the constitu- 
tion, and that it was partly owing to this position that he 
was chosen as a delegate to Congress by the Virginia as- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 147 

sembly. But underneath all this mass of assertion, the 
substantial truth seems to be, that John Brown was one of 
those educated men in Kentucky who " insisted on certain 
necessary amendments," and, made their previous adoption 
a condition precedent to the ratification of the constitu- 
tion, to which, without those amendments, he was opposed. 
This is corroborated by Humphrey Marshall's statement, 
made during the life time of John Brown, and which was 
not denied, that, during Marshall's attendance upon the 
Virginia convention, he had " been abundantly forwarned 
of the loss of popularity " if he voted for the ratification, 
" and admonished, that it was Mr. Broion's decided opinion, 
rendered in a letter to a mem,ber, that the constitution ought to 
be REJECTED." The Wilkinson party in Kentucky, of 
whom Brown was one, were known to be almost, if not 
quite, unanimously opposed to the constitution. This was 
especially the case with those who had been active, as 
Brown had been, in producing and exciting public clamor 
on the subject of the navigation of the Mississippi. It 
has been seen from the letters of Washington, that the 
opposition to the constitution in Kentucky was mainly 
from that faction. 

In Littell's pamphlet, published by John Brown and 
others of that faction, the statement was made that 
" there was much reason to fear that bartering away the 
navigation of the Mississippi would be one of its (the 
new government's) first acts." It can scarcely be doubted 
that John Brown, who, in 1806, thus asserted that there 
was "much reason," in ITovember, 1788, after the Consti- 
tution had been adopted, for the ' fear' that this bartering 
away " would be one of the first acts " of the new govern- 
ment, exerted his influence, so far as it went, to prevent the 
establishment of that government, which there was much 
reason to fear, would do that thing. That he succeeded 
in making the amiable and trusting Madison believe him 
to be a friend of that Constitution and Government, from 
which so much was to be feared, if it is at all true that 
Madison did so believe, is not at all incompatible with 
what all other circumstances conspire to establish as the 



148 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

actual truth, that he was as decidedly hostile to it as any 
delegate from Kentucky who openly opposed the ratifica- 
tion of that instrument. Not one scintilla of evidence 
has ever yet been produced tending to disprove Mar- 
shall's emphatic declaration. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 149 



CHAPTER X. 

John Bro\vx is Elected to Congress— Kextucky's Atplication Placed 
IN His Charge— The Adoption of the Constitution by Ten States, 
Including Virginia, Necessitates the Reference of the Applica- 
tion to the New Government, which had thus Been Formed — 
Gaedoqui's Proposition — It is Favored by John Brown, Who 
Writes Letters to Kentucky Ascribing Sinister Motives to Con- 
gress—He Urges Kentucky to Disregard the Advice of that 
Body, to Form a Constitution and Erect Itself Into a State, in 
Order to Adopt Measures to Promote Her Own Interests — 
Those Interests Clearly Indicated in the Gardoqui Overture — 
The Trick Played by' John Brown to Conceal the Motive of that 
Overture— It is Imitated by His Grandson. 

On the 12th of November, 1787, the name of John 
Brown appears for the last time on the journal of the Vir- 
ginia Senate.* To him the duty of placing before Con- 

*This was the date of the passage of the second series of resolutions 
in regard to the navigation of the Mississippi by the House of Delegates, 
which were never introduced into the Senate, and a transcript of which 
John Brown did not even take the trouble to carry with him to Con- 
gress. In fact these resolutions, which are those quoted in the " Polit- 
ical Beginnings" as having been passed in 1786, never were forwarded to 
the Congressional delegation. [See letter of Madison to Edmund Ran- 
dolph, Sept. 2-4, 1788, Madison Papers, Vol. II., page 677.] The Mr. Thrus- 
ton, by whom they were called up in the House of Delegates, was the gal- 
lant Colonel Charles Mynn Thruston, a worthy scion of the cavaliers, not 
of the rakehelly and swashbuckler variety, but of the nobler type of the 
stern Strafford, the chivalrous Ormond and the princely Hamilton. He 
descended from a family which became early seated in Gloucester, 
where he was born. His wife was a member of the numerous and 
highly reputable family of Buckner. They were the parents of Buck- 
ner Thruston, who became distinguished as a judge and as a U. S. Sen- 
ator from Kentucky. Among the Kentucky descendants of Colonel 
Charles Mynn Thruston are the family of his name in Louisville ; that 
of the late Judge Pirtle, and of the late Dr. Lewis Rogers, of the same 
city ; and Mrs. Paxton Marshall, of Mason. He graduated at William 
and Mary College ; was an officer in the French and Indian war ; be- 
came an E^piscopal minister, and continued in that profession until the 
Revolution; he then raised a company and marched to join Washing- 
ton in New Jersey. At an engagement at Amboy his arm was shat- 



150 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

gress, the respectful application by the convention of Sep- 
tember, 1787, that assent should be given to the establish- 
ment of the independence of Kentucky, in accordance 
with the conditions expressed in the act of the Virginia 
Assembly (of January 10, 1787), and for the admission 
into the confederation of the new State to be thus erected, 
had been expressly entrusted. But no quorum of Con- 
gress met until the last of January, 1788 ; the application 
was not presented by Mr. Brown until the 29th of Feb- 
ruary. The reason for the delay assigned by Mr. Brown : 
that "great part of the winter and spring, there was not 
a representation of the States sufficient to proceed to this 
business : " was probably the true cause. Even after a 
quorum was had, the members were too much occupied 
with watching the reports of the action of the several 
States upon the question of ratifying the new Constitu- 
tion (many of the members of Congress were also dele- 
gates to the respective State conventions) to give proper 
attention to their immediate business. 

It was not until the 30th of May that Congress fixed 
upon the 2d of June as the day for considering the appli- 
cation. On that day Congress, sitting as a committee of 
the whole, cheerfully adopted the report presented by Mr. 
Otis, of Massachusetts, asserting the expediency of " erect- 
ing " the Kentucky district into an " independent state," 
and referring the application of the convention and the 
acts of the Assembly of Virginia to a committee to be 
composed of one member from each state, to prepare and 
report an act assenting to the " independence of the said 
district of Kentucky, and for receiving the same into the 



tered. He was promoted to a Colonelcy, but as the regiment to 
which he was appointed could not be raised, he became a supernumer- 
ary. After drawing the sword he never resumed the gown ; but be- 
came presiding judge of the Frederick Court, and frequently repre- 
sented that county in the assembly. In 1809 he removed to Louisiana, 
where he died in 1812. The battle of New Orleans was fought upon the 
place of his interment. The presentation of these resolutions by this 
gallant veteran, and their advocacy by such men as Patrick Henry, 
George Mason, and Nicholas, sufficiently refute the pretense that their 
passage was "procured from tlie assembly " by John Brown. 



The Spcmish Conspiracy. 151 

Union as a member thereof in a mode conformable to the 
articles of confederation." There were but eleven of the 
states then having delegates present, and to a committee 
of that number Congress the next day referred the pa- 
pers, with directions to draft and report a bill to give 
effect to the sense of that body as it had been thus form- 
ally declared. Among the members of this committee 
there was no difficulty in agreeing upon the terms of the 
bill ; nor is there an iota of testimony to sustain the asser- 
tion made by John Brown in his letter to Muter, that the 
delay in reporting the bill which was drawn by that com- 
mittee was occasioned by the opposition of a majority of 
its members to the measure. 

Ere three weeks had passed, however, intelligence was 
brought that New Hampshire had transmitted her ratifi- 
cation of the Constitution, which gave the number requis- 
ite for its adoption and the establishment of the Kepublic 
of the People. Moreover, though no formal and official 
notification of Virginia's action on the 26th of June had 
been received ; yet, by the 1st of July, Mr. Madison, fresh 
from the scenes of his polemic triumj)hs, had arrived in 
New York ; and it was known that Virginia, of which 
Kentucky was a part, already made the te7ilh of the assent- 
ing commonwealths, that the confederacy had become 
moribund, and that the new Union was about to be 
launched upon its career of magnificent achievement. 
That the confederacy was on the eve of dissolution, that 
the rightful powers of its Congress to grant the appli- 
cation had thus terminated, was the ample justification for 
the request (on the 2d of July) made by the committee on 
whom had been imposed the duty of drawing a bill for 
that purpose, to be discharged. The bill, which had been 
drawn by the committee, was then promptly offered by 
John Brown, was seconded by Edward Carrington, and 
was made the special order for the next day. When it 
was then called up by Mr. Brown for consideration, a sub- 
stitute was offered by Mr. Dane, of Massachusetts, w^ho 
made a motion to postpone the bill until a vote could be 
had upon his substitute. As eftbrts have been made to 



152 The Spanish Co7}sinra('y. 

create the belief that this motion proceeded from hostility 
to Kentucky, and irom jealousy of the South, it is worthy of 
note that tlie motion for postponement Avas seconded by 
Mr. Tucker, of South Carolina, and was supported by 
every southern man present except the Virginia delega- 
tion ; and that then the substitute itself was carried by the 
votes of all the states, including Virginia, Mr. Brown him- 
self remaining silent, and Mr. Yeates, of New York, vot- 
ing in the negative. That substitute, which exhibits the 
just, fair and conciliatory spirit of Congress, and of its 
northern members whose motives were aspersed by John 
Brown ; — which so concisely states the facts and motives 
that influenced the wise action, and expresses so clearly 
the unanswerable logic of the situation, is as follows, viz : 

" Whereas application has been lately made to Congress by the Legis- 
lature of Virginia, and the district of Kentucky, for the admission of 
the said district into the Federal Union, as a separate member thereof 
on the terms contained in the acts of the said legislature, and in the 
resolutions of the said district relative to the premises. And whereas. 
Congress having fully considered the subject, did on the third day of 
June last resolve that it is expedient that the said district be erected 
into a sovereign and independent state, and a separate member of the 
federal union, and appointed a committee to report an act accordingly, 
which committee on the second instant was discharged — it appearing 
that nine states had adopted the constitution of the United States, 
lately submitted to conventions of the people. 

And whereas a new confederacy is formed among the ratifying states, 
and there is reason to believe that the State of Virginia, including the 
said district, did on the twenty-sixth of June last, become a member of 
'the said confederacy. 

And whereas an act of Congress in the present state of the govern- 
ment of the country, severing a part of said state from the other part 
thereof, and admitting it into the confederacy, formed by the articles of 
confederation and perpetual union, as an independent member thereof, 
may be attended with many inconveniences, while it can have no effect 
to make the said district a separate member of the federal union formed 
by the adoption of the said constitution, and therefore it must be mani- 
festly improper for Congress assembled under the said articles of con- 
federation to adopt any other measures relative to the premises, than 
those which express their sense that the said district as a separate state 
be admitted in the Union, as soon as circumstances shall permit proper 
measures to be adopted for that purpose : 

Resolved, That a copy of the proceedings of Congress relative to the 
independence of the district of Kentucky, be transmitted to the Legis- 
lature of Virginia, and also to Samuel McDowell, Esquire, late president 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 153 

of said convention, and that the said legislature and the inliabitants of 
the district aforesaid be informed, that as the constitution of the United 
States is now ratified, Congress think it unadvisahle to adopt any fur- 
ther measures for admitting the district of Kentucky into the federal 
union as an independent member thereof under the articles of confed- 
eration and perpetual union ; but that Congress thinking it expedient 
that the said district be made a separate state and member of the Union, 
as soon after proceedings shall commence under the said constitution, 
as circumstances shall permit, recommend it to the said legislature, and 
to the inhabitants of the said district, so to alter their acts and resolu- 
tions relative to the premises, as to render them conformable to the 
provisions made in the said constitution, to the end that no impediment 
may be in the way of the speedy accomplishment of this important 
business." 

Had it been deemed proper to add aught to this cogent 
reasoning and just conclusion, it might truthfully have 
been stated, that both the acts of Virginia had unmistak- 
ably evinced her determination, that the district should 
not be taken from under her authority until provision had 
been previously made for its admission into the Union ; 
and that the unavoidable inference remained, that it was 
equally her will, now that she had entered into the new 
Union, that the same condition should apply as to Ken- 
tucky's admission into it; that recognition of the inde- 
pendence of Kentucky and her admission into the confed- 
eration would neither have admitted her into that new 
Union, to provide for which the Congress of the confeder- 
ation had no power, nor have imposed lupon the State 
thus created any obligation to seek such admission ; that 
admission into the new Union could only be obtained by 
the States of the confederation by ratifying the Constitu- 
tion, against which the large majority of the Kentucky del- 
egates to the Virginia convention had voted, and to which 
an overwhelming majority of her people were known to 
be opposed; and that the only eifect of receiving her then 
into the fast declining confederation would have been to 
have soon left her free from all political bonds to the 
United States, an independent and sovereign State, sep- 
arated from them by the barriers of the AUeghanies, at 
liberty to make her own treaties and to form alliances 
wheresoever she listed ; — an almost certain prey to the 



15-4 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Briton, who still held with strong hand the military posts 
in the north, or to the Spaniard, whose cannon com- 
manded the hanks and mouth of the Mississippi, whose 
minister at Xew York was even then intriguing with 
the western delegate in Congress, and whose governor 
of Louisiana had already bought Kentucky's most bril- 
liant and most influential citizen. 

Of this determination by Congress, Colonel Brown ad- 
mits, that it was a "right conclusion," that the "logic of 
the situation was all with the substitute moved by Mr. 
Dane, of Massachusetts." "This substitute," Colonel 
Brown informs us, " was temperate and conciliatory in 
language, perfectly fair in its statement of the facts, and 
it embodied a series of explanations and reasons that were 
indisputably sound," For this substitute, every southern 
delegate in Congress, except John Brown, who was silent, 
voted. That he "held his peace" is explained by his 
shortly after urging the people of the district to declare 
independence and assert sovereignty, without regard to 
the act of Virginia or to the assent of Congress. By this 
step Kentucky would have been placed, so far as the act 
itself could have been made effective, outside of the con- 
federation, as well as outside of the Union of the Consti- 
tution. This "wise action" of Congress was represented 
by John Brown in Littell's pamphlet, " to have been owing 
to the malign influence of an eastern politician, wdiose tal- 
ents for intrigue have become famous throughout the civ- 
ilized world" (probably meaning thereby the able and 
patriotic Jay). "The conduct of Qongress," he declared, 
referring to Dane's substitute, which his grandson so 
highly commends, and for which his colleagues voted, " on 
the application of the district, manifested the existence of 
some sinister political design." He explained that this 
sinister design was to give up to Spain the right of navi- 
gating the Mississippi, and to oppose the progress of the 
west and the creation of new States therein, though he 
knew that the same Congress had most emphatically re- 
pudiated the sinister design which he attributed to it, and 
had already made provision for the creation of new States 



The Spanish Consinracy. 155 

in the west. This was a repetition of one of the scandal- 
ous misrepresentations which Washington so bitterly con- 
demned, and which was resorted to by William Grayson, 
in the Virginia convention, in his frantic endeavors to de- 
feat the ratification of the Constitution, to inflame the 
Kentucky members of that body, and to prevent the es 
tablishment of a government whose laws the demagogues 
could no longer with impunity defy. 

To Oliver Pollock, of whose intimate association with 
the Spaniards and interest in the trade with Louisiana and 
the west he had knowledge, — to Oliver Pollock, John 
Brown communicated " in confidence " his determination 
" to return home, and, on his arrival, to call for a general 
assembly of his fellow-citizens, in order to proceed imme- 
diately to declare themselves independent, and to propose 
to Spain the opening of a commercial intercourse with 
reciprocal advantages." Pollock disclosed to Miro this 
intention, which Brown declared to him. The Intendant 
wrote to his court, under date of November 8, 1788, that 
Valdes, the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, might 
" rest assured, that Brown, on his arrival in Kentucky, 
finding Wilkinson and his associates disposed to surren- 
der themselves up to Spain, or at least to put themselves 
under her protection, will easily join them."* The " in- 



* " Oliver Pollock, a citizen of I'hiladelpbia, who arrived here three 
days ago, in a vessel from Martinique, has disclosed to me that Brown, 
a member of Congress, who is a man of jjroperty in Kentucky, told him 
in confidence that, in the debates of that body on the question of the 
independence of that territory, he saw clearly that the intention of his 
colleagues was, that Kentucky should remain under the jurisdiction of 
Congress, like , the county of Illinois, and that a governor should be 
appointed by them for that province as for the other; but that, as this 
was opposed to the welfare of the inhabitants of Kentucky, he was de- 
termined to return home, (which he did before Pollock's departure from 
Philadelphia), and, on his arrival, to call for a general assembly, of his 
fellow-citizens, in order to proceed immediately to declare themselves 
independent, and to propose to Spain the opening of a commercial in- 
tercourse with reciprocal advantages ; and that, to accomplish this ob- 
ject, he would send to Pollock the necessary documents, to be laid be- 
fore me and to be forwarded to your excellency. He requested Pollock 
to prepare me for it in anticipation. Your excellency will, therefore, 
rest assured that Brown, on his arrival in Kentucky, finding Wilkinson 



156 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

dependence" which John Brown thus announced his pur- 
pose to urge Kentucky to declare, was not simply inde- 
pendence of Virginia, but of the confederation and of the 
new Union as well ; for, neither under the articles of the 
one nor under the constitution of the other, could a State 
make any treaty or form any alliance, commercial or oth- 
wise, with a foreign power. 

The confidential interview with Pollock was evidently 
after John Brown had ascertained from Gardoqui the na- 
ture of the instructions he had received from Madrid in 
the preceding March, as the direct result of the memorial 
of Wilkinson, which had been forwarded to Spain in Sep- 
tember, 1787, and of the urgent advice of the gifted i^Ta- 
varro, that no time should be lost in the adoption of meas- 
ures necessary to populate Louisiana and to procure a sepa- 
ration of the west from, the Union. "^^ It was discerned by 
statesmen at Madrid that the republican institutions of 
America were inimical to those of Spain, and they fore- 
saw that the growth and extension of the Union would 
ultimately endanger the Spanish possessions of Louisiana, 
Texas and Mexico, Faithful to his instructions to labor 
for the dismemberment of that LTnion, and anticipating 
the action of Congress, Gardoqui took occasion " to culti- 

and his associates disposed to surrender themselves up to Spain, or at 
least, to put themselves under her protection, will easily join them, and 
it is probable, as Wilkinson has already foretold it, that, next spring, I 
shall have to receive here a deputation appointed in due form. I acted 
toward Pollock with a great deal of caution, and answered him as one 
to whom had been communicated some new and unlooked-for informa- 
tion, giving him to understand that I could not pledge to him my sup- 
port before seeing the documents he expected." [Miro's dispatch to 
A'aldes, Nov. 3, 1788. Gayarre, page 222.] 

"•■•' " Don Diego Gardoqui, about the month of March last, received from 
his court ample powers to make with the people of this district the ar- 
rangements he might think proper, in order to estrange them from the 
United States and induce them to form an alliance with Spain. I re- 
ceived this information, in the first place, from Mr. Brown, the member 
of Congress for this district, who, since the taking into consideration of 
our application to be admitted into the Union has been suspended, en- 
tered into some free communications on this matter with Don Diego 
Gardoqui." [Wilkinson's letter to INIiro, Februarv 12, 1789. Gayarre, 
page 241.] 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 157 

vate the friendship of the aforesaid Brown, and to intro- 
duce such topics as he (I) thought would produce good re- 
sults " for the accomplishment of the scheme of disunion 
he had been ordered to prosecute. In those frequent in- 
terviews held prior to and after the decision of Congress, 
Gardoqui " touched upon those obstacles imposed by 
our treaties with other nations, which forbade us accord- 
ing any extension of favor to his section of country while 
pertaining to the United States," and " artfully insinuated 
that only themselves could remove the difficulty, inasmuch as 
if separated they would afford excuse for regarding them as 
an interior district without maritime designs, and perhaps 
we could devise some plan for adjusting- the markets so 
much needed in our own possessions." The wily Span- 
iard w^as too polite, even had he not been too circumspect, 
to at once bluntly tell the listening statesman from the 
w^est, that his Catholic majesty, warned by the most astute 
of his counsellors of the perils to be apprehended from 
the future vigor of the young giant, if time and room 
were given for its development, was intent, above all other 
things, on dismembering the Union, and strangling repub- 
lican liberty in its germ. ]^or did he explain in detail, that 
one great motive of the Spanish diplomacy in refusing to 
listen to any suggestion that the United States had a right 
to navigate the Mississippi, was to use that matter as its 
most valuable aid in accomplishing its design of disunion. 
But he did inform Mr. Brown, as he had all along in- 
formed Jay, that this right on the part of the United 
States would never be admitted by Spain. And, however 
his suggestions of treason to the world's hope of freedom 
may have been veiled by the pretext, that treaties with 
other nations prevented the extension of this privilege to 
the people of Kentucky so long as they continued a part 
of the Union ; but that, if Kentucky would separate from 
the Union, then those treaties might be evaded on the 
ground that, as an interior state, she was without mari- 
time ambitions ; — still, Gardoqui intended to give and did 
give Mr. Brown distinctly to understand, and the member 
of Congress fully understood, that so long as Kentucky 



158 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

remained a part of the Union, the privilege of navigating 
the Mississippi would never be granted to them by Spain. 
He was given to understand, toO, and did understand, 
that if Kentucky would first withdraw from the Union, 
then, and not until then, upon that fundamental condi- 
tion precedent, and upon no other, Gardoqui was author- 
ized to negotiate with the state, thus separated from and 
independent of the Union, for the extension of that privi- 
lege to her people. There was no room for misunder- 
standing Gardoqui's proposition, nor did Brown misap- 
prehend Gardoqui's object. As the words fell from the 
lips of the Spaniard he "carefully observed" the expres- 
sion of Brown's countenance, and it " seemed to him (me) 
that he (I) could discern the satisfaction it gave." 

Brown promised to consider the proposition, and to 
have further talk with Gardoqui upon the subject. lie 
carefully revolved the proposition in his own mind, view- 
ing it in its relations to the future of the Kentucky people, 
and, beyond doubt, in its probable bearings upon his own 
fortunes. Then, several days after the interview in which 
he had given Gardoqui his promise, he sought the latter at 
the Minister's own residence. There he renewed with the 
Spaniard the discussion of the interesting topic. Gardoqui 
then "repeated the same and other observations" — be- 
coming more direct and bolder as Brown evidently pre- 
pared for capitulation. It is scarcely a mere fancy, that 
the Spaniard drew an alluring picture of the profits and 
wealth to be reaped for the Kentucky people by the pros- 
pective commerce with Louisiana and the rich islands of 
the gulf, to which they were invited. Due appreciation 
of the good manners which distinguish the Castilian gen- 
tleman forbids the belief that the Minister suggested pe- 
cuniary or other personal reward to Mr. Brown as the 
result of successful efforts by him to promote the design 
disclosed; yet it is scarcely possible that no such consider- 
ation found a lodgment in Brown's own mind. He ex- 
pressed himself" as quite satisfied and obliged " to Gardo- 
qui for the offer which the latter had made to him. And 
he " admitted, in covjidence/' that he had, by a messenger, 



Ihe Spanish Conspiracy. 159 

already announced to his constituents the action of Con- 
gress, and that he had " communicated to them 1\\q favor- 
able disposition he liad discovered " in Gardoqui to grant 
the navigation of the Mississippi as the price of their 
separation from the Union. 

He further assured Gardoqui that, as a consequence of 
the information he had forwarded to his constituents of 
the "good disposition he had discovered" in the Spanish 
minister, he hoped to " communicate matters of import- 
ance productive of benefit to that country." By this he 
meant the Spaniard to understand, and Gardoqui did so 
understand, that he hoped to soon communicate to Gar- 
doqui that the district had declared her independence, as- 
sumed sovereignty and had w^ithdravi^n from the Union, 
as Gardoqui desired, so as to entitle her people to the 
" benefit " of the promise Gardoqui had made. He did not 
forget to tell the Spaniard that a convention would be 
held in Danville in July — the month in which their con- 
versation was held, — and " that he expected it would re- 
solve upon the erection of an independent State," — which 
could only be done by violating all the conditions of the 
act of the Virginia Assembly, and, as the Congress had 
made no provision to admit the State so erected, would 
have disconnected it equally from the confederation which 
was about to die and the Union which was in process of 
accouchement. It was thus alone he could have hoped 
that any " 667ie^^ " would accrue to the people of Ken- 
tucky from the " favorable disposition he had discovered " 
in Gardoqui. He told Gardoqui, that he would leave New 
York the 1st of August, and that he would arrive in 
Kentucky in time to " inform " his constituents of the 
proposals made by Spain, and to " aid in what he had dis- 
cussed" with the Spanish envoy. " On taking his leave," 
the sanguine Mr. Brown enthusiastically " thanked me 
(Gardoqui) for himself and in the name of all the country 
(Kentucky), which would be under lasting obligations to 
me," — for having offered the navigation of the Mississippi, 
which had been obstinately refused to the United States, 
as a bribe to Kentucky to cut adrift from the Union and 



160 The ISfanisli Conspiracy. 

its destinies ! Eve, as slie looked with fascinated eye 
upon the hateful head and deadly coils of the arch enemy 
of man, did not more easily nor more eagerly succumb.* 



■•■Subjoined is the full text of Gardoqui's dispatch of July 25, 1788, as 
copied from the ■' Political Beginnings," page 146, viz.: 

" In my dispatches of ISth April, I had the honor to inform your ex- 
cellency of that movement which the District of Kentucky had renewed 
in consequence of the consent given by Virginia (of which it forms a 
part) to its recognition and admission by Congress as a sovereign, inde- 
pendent state. The matter was agitated vigorously of late, and a com- 
mittee named, composed of one member from each state, and after- 
wards upon consideration (as the order of the day) in a general session 
of Congress, it was agreed that the demand was just; though in view of 
the various circumstances of the time, it was referred to the new gov- 
ernment. 

" This determination was very distasteful to those who promoted the 
separation of the district, and particularly so to ]\Ir. John Brown, a 
landed proprietor and resident in that District, who was interested in 
that matter, among others, as member in Congress. Finally the busi- 
ness was passed over to the new government, in which the State of Vir- 
ginia will be included as part, because of her consent to join the con- 
federation, given before the fourth of the present month. Foreseeing 
some of these occurrences, I took occasion during the past year to cul- 
tivate the friendship of the aforesaid Brown, and to introduce such 
topics as I thought would produce good results. 

"Our friendship gradually increased and my sentiments naturally 
made an impi-ession on him, inasmuch as they touched upon those 
obstacles, imposed by our treaties with other nations, which forbade us 
according any extension of favor to his section of country while per- 
taining to the United .States, artfully insinuating that only themselves 
could remove the difticulty ; inasmuch as if separated they would afford 
excuse for regarding them as an interior district without maritime de- 
signs, and perhaps we could devise some plan for adjusting the markets 
so much needed in some of our possessions. 

" I carefully observed his appearance as I told him this, and it seemed 
to me that I could discern the satisfaction it gave. He said he would 
reflect upon it, and would see me and talk at leisure vipon the subject. 
Several days passed and he came to this house, where a few days since 
we had a long conversation in which we renewed the subject, and I re- 
peated the same and other observations. He seemed quite satisfied 
and obliged to me, and admitted, in confidence, that he had, by a mes- 
senger who had left some days before, communicated to his constitu- 
uents the decision of Congress concerning the separation, referring to 
the favorable disposition he had discovered in me, and, in short, that 
lie hoped to communicate matters of importance productive of benefit 
to that country. He told me, in conclusion, that this month the con- 
vention would meet, and that he expected it would resolve upon the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 161 

John Brown was fresh from tliese conferences with the 
Spanish minister when he made to Oliver Pollock the 
" conlideutial" declaration of his purpose, which, as it 
appears from Miro's dispatch to his Court, Pollock 
in turn shortly after repeated to Miro, and which was 
identical with that related by Gardoqui. The very na- 
ture of these conferences excludes from the probabilities 
the suggestion of Colonel John Mason Brown, that Madi- 
son, or some other member of the Virginia delegation, 
was present thereat, and places that intimation among the 
vain and empty imaginings of the author. And the very 



erection of an independent state ; that he expected to leave this place 
the 1st of August, and that he would arrive in time to inform and aid 
what he had discussed with me, for he deems it a very fit and impor- 
tant subject for consideration, and for the present he thanked me for 
himself and in the name of all the country, which would be under last- 
ing obligation to me. This, your Excellency, is another element of this 
arduous business, in which I believe that now more than ever it be- 
hooves us to take occasion to make sure for ourselves without incurring 
resentment of others. I beg that your Excellency will condescend to 
inform me if this has the approbation of his majesty, and that the ele- 
vated understanding of your Excellency will direct me, so that if any 
sudden occasion should occur 1 may meet it effectively and without 
clash, which I confess seems difficult. Your Excellency is aware that 
the power his majesty has designed to confer on me mentions the 
'United States,' and will serve to direct me if occasion offers to do any 
thing within its scope. 

" I think we need not be disturbed by the English intrigues for ob- 
taining the friendship of that District, because its inhabitants well know 
how infinitely important to them is communication and friendship with 
their neighbors of the Lower River who have that which they need, 
and the port which naturally pertains to their country. 

" It is more than likely that the before mentioned member will again 
see me before he departs, and I will not lose an opportunity of for- 
warding affairs or of informing your Excellency of what may have 
occurred. In the meantime I conclude, again submitting myself to the 
orders of your Excellency, and praying that God may guard the life of 
your Excellency many years. 

" New York, 25th July, 1788. Most Excellent Sir, I kiss the hands of 
your Excellency. 

" Your most obliged and obedient servant, 

"'■ Diego De Gardoqui." 

11 



162 The Spanish Consjnracy . 

letters* of Madison which he cites, but does not quote, for 
his bold assertion that Gardoqui had " quite clearly 
broached a proposition that Kentucky should be aban- 
doned to Spain," to Madison ; and that Gardoqui " had 
conversations of similar import " with Madison and Mon- 



* In a note at the bottom of page 14 of the Centennial Address, Col- 
onel Brown says: "Madison, under date 19th of March, 1787, writes 
very fully to Jefferson concerning the agitation existing in the western 
country, and Gardoqui's plan of offering right of navigation, if Kentucky 
would join Spain. (The Madison Papers, vol. 2, page 622)." There is 
not a Hne nor a word in the letter cited to furnish the shadow of a war- 
rant for Colonel Brown's statement. Mr. ]\Iadison informed Jefferson 
that "A late accidental conversation with Gardoqui proved to me that 
the negotiation (Jay's) is arrested." . . . '' But although it appears that the 
intended sacrifice will not be made, the consequences of the intention and 
the attempt are likely to be very serious." ... "I have credible infor- 
mation that the people living on the Western waters are already in 
great agitation, and are taking measures for uniting their consultations. 
{This had reference to the movement of the Committee of Western 
Pennsylvania, and anticipated the circular of Brown, Innes, Sebastian 
and Muter.) The ambition of individuals will quickly mix itself vnth the 
original motives of resentment and interest. (Madison seems to have under- 
stood human nature, and to have anticipated its operations upon John 
Brown, Hary Innes and Benjamin Sebastian.) Communications will 
gradually take place with their British neighbors. They will be led to set 
up) for themselves (that was what Hary Innes threatened to do in his letter 
to Governor Randolph) to seize on the vacant lands, to entice emigrants 
by bounties and an exemption from federal burdens, and in all respects 
play the part of Vermont on a large theatre. It is hinted to me that 
British partisans are already feeling the pulse of some of the western 
settlements. Should those apprehensions not be imaginary, Spain may 
have equal cause with the United States to rue this unnatural attempt 
to shut the Mississippi. Gardoqui has been admonished of the danger 
and, I believe, is not insensible to it, though he affects to be otherwise, 
and talks as if the dependence of Britain on the commercial favors of 
his court would induce her to play into the hands of Spain." This is 
the only mention made of Gardoqui in the letter, and from the begin- 
ning to the end of it the name of Kentucky is not mentioned, nor is 
there a single expression from the beginning to the end of the letter 
which can be construed as alluding to Kentucky other than those 
contained in these quotations. It contains not one word which could 
possibly have suggested to Colonel Brown that Gardoqui had proposed 
to Madison a "plan of offering right of navigation if Kentucky ivould join 
Spain." That plan was never proposed nor suggested by Gardoqui to 
Madison. He did formally and officially propose it to John Brown, a 
year later, and John Brown promised to " aid " in promoting that plan. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 163 

roe, to that in which he proposed to John Brown that 
Kentucky should withdraw from the Union in order to 
secure the navigation of the Mississippi : furnish the most 
exphcit contradiction to Colonel Brown's statement, which 
they show to have been an invention, without even the 
quality of ingenuity to commend it. While Colonel 
Brown's positive and most venturesome allegation, that 
Gardoqui did not claim John Brown as won over by him, 
is absolutely refuted by the words of Gardoqui's dispatch, 
which he reproduces in the " Political Beginnings," that 
Brown said he deemed Gardoqui's proposition as " fit 
and important for consideration " and that he would re- 
turn home in time to " inform and aid what he had dis- 
cussed with me." 

In his " Political Beginnings " Colonel Brown publishes 
what purports to be memoranda made by John Brown of 
his testimony before the legislative committee which in- 
vestigated the charge against Sebastian in 1806 ; — which 
memoranda represent John Brown to have stated that he 
had informed Mr. Madisou of Gardoqui's proposition when 
it was made. The official report of the testimony which 
John Brown gave in that case, does not, however, confirm 
the memoranda; but, on the contrary, is strong prima 
facie evidence that the statement which appears in the 
alleged memoranda is untrue. But were the memoranda 
correct, and the deposition signed by John Brown himself 
in error, as to what he then testified ; and were the alleged 
testimony also true, it would prove that Mr. Madison was 
not present at the conference between John Brown and 
Gardoqui. For, if he was there and heard it, why should 
John Brown have communicated to Mr. Madison. what he 
had heard from Gardoqui's own lips in John Brown's pres- 
ence ? If Colonel Brown believed the memoranda to be 
authentic and its statements true, it results that he could 
have had no faith in his own argument that Madison was 
present at and participated in the conference, — the very 
nature of which forbids the thought that Colonel Brown's 
suggestion could be correct. 

The statement made in the " Beginnings," that John 



164 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Brown, after his conference with Gardoqui, " now knew 
unmistakably from the lips of the Spanish minister that 
nothing but a pretext, such as would evade the complica- 
tions of an old diplomacy, was sought for permitting the 
people of the west to enjoy the natural advantages of 
their geographical position," possesses greater merit for 
its faultless grammatical construction than as a candid re- 
lation of the facts. The official dispatch of Gardoqui, 
which appears in the " Beginnings," and the official com- 
munications of Navarro and Miro to their court, which 
are excluded therefrom, unfortunately combine to prove 
that the reference to the " old diplomacy," as a reason why 
the right of navigating the Mississippi from its source to 
its mouth which Great Britain had acquired in 1763, and 
which the United States had acquired by the reyolution, 
could not be conceded to them, was the "pretext; " while 
the real aim of the Spaniards, Diplomats and Intendant, 
was to divide the Union, and that the Mississippi was the 
means by which they sought to tempt or drive Kentuck- 
ians to disloyalty. When this purpose was disclosed to 
John Brown by Gardoqui, it appears from the dispatch of 
the latter, that Mr. Brown deemed the matter " fit for con- 
sideration," and promised to " aid " in what had been pro- 
posed to him. 

The " Beginnings" continues : "It was now deiinitely 
admitted that trade through the Mississippi would be 
' winked at ' until a formal international treaty could be 
concluded, if only some excuse like the declaration of a new 
state could be presented as a palliative to Spanish pride of 
opinion." But the facts with which Colonel Brown was 
familiar show, that Spain had refused, and at that very 
time continued to persistently refuse, to make any treaty 
with the United States which admitted even by implica- 
tion their right to that navigation, or one which did not 
explicitly abandon that navigation below our own bound- 
aries. The expression which fell from Gardoqui, " that in 
case of a treaty (which should abandon our right to the 
navigation) trade through the Mississippi and other chan- 
nels would be winked at," was in a conversation with Mr. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 165 

.Madison more than a year before he made his proposition 
to John Brown, and was not one by which he or his court 
were bound. In the meantime, as the result of the advice 
of Navarro, and of the intrigue with "Wilkinson, he had 
received explicit instructions to exert himself to separate 
Kentucky from the Union. The " excuse like that of a 
declaration of a new state " which he sought, was that of a 
state separate from the Union, whose position would drive 
her to seek an alliance with the government of the In- 
quisition. And that was what John Brown knew unmis- 
takably from Gardoqui's own lips, and that was the posi- 
tion in which he agreed to " aid " in placing Kentucky. 



166 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XL 

John Brown Writes Letters to Colonel McDowell, Muter and 
OTHERS, Suppressing the Reasons Assigned by Congress for its 
Action, and Assigning Sinister Motives Therefor. — His " Sliding 
Letter" to McDowell — He Withholds from McDowell the Fact 
THAT a Separation from the Union was the Price Demanded by 
Spain in Return for her Proposed Favors — He Reveals Himself 
more fully in a Letter to Muter — His Brother, James, after- 
wards Denies that he ever Wrote such a Letter and Traduces 
James M. Marshall for Stating that he had — In 1800, John 
Brown Suppresses the Letter to Muter, and Pretends that it 
gave the same Account of the Gardoqui Overture as was given 
BY his Letter to McDowell — It Disappears from the File of the 
Gazette— The Browns all Fight Shy of it— Colonel Bkown 
Publishes it in a Mutilated Form — Imitates the Prestidigitat- 
ing of his Grandfather. 

In his secret conference with Gardoqui, as appears from 
the dispatch of the latter to his court, John Brown " ad- 
mitted, in confidence, that he had hy a messenger who 
had left New York some days before, communicated to 
his constituents the decision of Congress concerning the 
separation," and had referred to the proposition made to 
him by Gardoqui. It seems certain that he sent by that 
messenger a number of letters other than the one received 
by Judge Samuel McDowell, but to whom they were 
addressed, or what were the exact terms used in those 
other letters, can not noAv be ascertained. The only letter 
which it can now be proved that he sent by that messen- 
ger * was the letter received by Colonel McDowell, who had 



•'■There were rumors at the Danville convention of July, 1789, of let- 
ters which had been received other than the one addressed to Colonel 
McDowell. These rumors did not refer to the letter written to Muter, 
which was not received until the fall of 1788. The one addressed to 
McDowell was received before the 28th of July, 1788, on which day the 
convention met. It must have been written and forwarded immediately 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 167 

been the stated president of all the previous conventions, 
save that presided over by Fleming, and whom he cor- 
rectly calculated would be chosen to the same position by 
that about to assemble. He expected and intended his 
letter to McDowell to reach that venerable gentleman on 
the eve of the assembling of the convention, which it did; 
and to make certain of this wrote and transmitted it at 
once. He also expected, as he informed Gardoqui, that, 
as an effect of that letter, the convention " would resolve 
upon the erection of an independent state," in defiance of 
the conditions expressed in the act of the assembly and in 
contempt of the decision and advice of Congress. But 
one newspaper was then published in Kentucky, which 
received intelligence of movements on the Atlantic coast 
only after long delays. Their Congressman was the 
medium upon whom the people naturally and necessarily 
depended for correct information of measures affecting 
their interests which were before the body of which he 
was a member. It was manifestly and peculiarly his duty 
to have transmitted to that convention information not 
only of the action of Congress upon their application, but 
the reasons assigned by Congress for that action. But, 
not satisfied with merely suppressing those reasons, " which 
were indisputably sound," and which were so well calcu- 
lated to convince, and conciliate and soothe and assure, 
John Brown substituted therefor reasons of his own, which 
attributed this just action to jealous animosity to the west 



after the action of Congress on July 3d, and the making of a direct 
proposition by Gardoqui, and before the conference described in the 
latter's dispatch. The letter to Muter was dated the 10th of July, 1788, 
was not received until the fall, and was not probably sent by the same 
messenger. Colonel Marshall wrote to Washington that he had read 
"some" of Brown's letters, which referred to more than one. Muter 
wrote that he " knetv that letters similar to that to me had been received 
much earlier, even previous to the sitting of the convention in the 
month of July, of that year, and that a letter, or a part of a letter from 
him was read in convention." This shows beyond doubt that he 
wrote other letters than those addressed to McDowell and Muter. But 
they were suppressed by his friends, and it was denied they were writ- 
ten. 



168 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

and to sinister designs, as he afterwards did in the Littell 
pamphlet. The motives he ascribed to Congress were cal- 
cuLated to inflame and exasperate. They were intended 
to precipitate the revolutionary separation from Virginia, 
which he told Gardoqui he expected. By this course 
Kentucky would have heen placed in readiness to embrace 
the proposals made to him by Gardoqui, which he after- 
wards obsequiously thanked the Spaniard for having made. 
The precise terms of that letter to McDowell were never 
made public. In its body no mention was made of Gar- 
doqui's overture. But he contrived a "sliding letter," 
written on a separate piece of paper, and marked " con- 
fidential," which he inclosed in the other ; and which was 
in these words : 

" In a conversation I had with ISIr. Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, 
relative to the navigation of the Mississippi, he stated that, if the people 
of Kentucky would erect themselves into an independent state, and appoint a 
proper person to negotiate with him, he had an authority for that purpose, and 
would enter into an arrangement with them, for the exportation of their produce 
to New Orleans, on terms of mutual advantage." 

The fundamental condition precedent, annexed by Gar- 
doqui, and understood by Brown, that this " indejjendent 
state " must be separate from and independent of the Union, 
as well as of Virginia, was not disclosed in this letter to 
the stern and vigorous McDowell. It will be perceived 
that, instead of explicitly and precisely stating the condi- 
tions under which Spain was ready to open the Mississippi 
to Kentucky, in this letter to Colonel McDowell the pru- 
dent Mr. Brown left a b#idge over which to retreat in 
case McDowell should repel the proposition of disunion. 
That bridge was to have been the same paltry pretense be- 
hind which he sought to shelter himself in the Littell 
pamphlet in 1806: That what was meant by an "inde- 
pendent state " was, a state separate from and independent 
of Virginia, but yet a member of the Union. The ambig- 
uous phrases employed in the " Political Beginnings," * by 



"Political Beginnings," page 150. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 169 

an accomplished master of tlie art of circumlocution, show 
that the same construction is even now sought to be placed 
upon Gardoqui's dispatch. 

With the weak and unstable Muter, who had been so 
greatly under the influence of himself and Innes, and 
under that influence had signed the circular of March 19, 
1787 ; — with Muter, Mr. Brown felt secure in being more 
explicit. The letter to Muter, was dated July 10, 1788, 
and in its lines John Brown himself stands revealed. In 
that letter he alleged, that the majority of the committee 
to which the application of Kentucky and the act of the 
assembly had been referred " could not be prevailed on to 
report a bill for the admission of Kentucky into the 
Union, because they were opposed to that admission.'" At the 
same time he sujypressed the unanswerable reasons assigned 
by Congress why they had ceased to have any rightful 
authority to grant the request, and for referring the ap- 
plication to the new government which had then been 
established; and suppressed also all the conciliatory ex- 
pressions in favor of admitting Kentucky into the. new 
Union, and the cordial and hearty advice that the district 
should get all things in readiness to be received into that 
new Union at the earliest practical moment. He referred 
to the refusal to receive Kentucky as if it had been the 
action of the " Eastern States " only ; assigned as their 
reason, that Vermont or Maine was not brought forward 
at the same time, and expressed the opinion that the 
eastern states never would assent to the admission of Ken- 
tucky except in that contingency ; emphatically affirmed, 
that " the jealousy of the growing importance of the western 
country, and an unwillingness to add a vote to the southern 
interest are the real causes of opposition •" and wound up with 
the assertion that these causes would " continue to exist" to 
a certain extent even under the new government. To give 
consistency to these animadversions upon the motives of 
the eastern states, to whose jealousy and ill will he 
ascribed the action, he carefully suppressed the fact that 
the delegates of every southern state present, except those 
of Virginia, had unanimously voted to postpone the bill 



170 The Spaiiish Conspiracy. 

in order to take up Dane's substitute ; and that the dele- 
gates from Virginia, saving himself alone, had then joined 
with the other southern states in passing the substitute 
itself! As presented by Mr. Brown, the situation for 
Kentucky was, indeed, gloomy. 

After this dismal outlook had been set forth, Mr. Brown 
proceeded to say that, the question then presented to the 
district was, whether it would continue its connection with 
Virginia, " or to declare its independence and proceed to 
form a- constitution of government ; " to abide by the law, 
obtain a new act of the assembly, and apply for admission 
into the new Union, or to act without law, resort to revo- 
lution, and assume sovereignty, which would not only 
separate them from Virginia, but would leave them with- 
out other political bonds. '"Tis generally expected," he 
wrote, " that the latter will be the determination, as you 
have proceeded too far to think of relinquishing the 
measure, and the interest of the district will render it 
altogether inexpedient to continue in your present situa- 
tion until an application for admission into the Union can 
be made in a constitutional mode, to the new govern- 
ment." More urgent advice could not have been given 
them to do what he had told Gardoqui he expected them 
to do ; and which would have been the first step necessary 
in the plan he had promised Gardoqui to return home and 
" aid." " This step," he continued, " will, in my opinion, 
tend to preserve unanimity, and will enable you to adopt 
with effect such measures as may he necessary to 2>romote the 
interests of the district." Viewed in the light cast upon it 
by the dispatch of Gardoqui and the statement of Pollock 
to Miro, what were the " measures " this declaration of 
independence and assumption of sovereignty would have 
enabled them to " adopt," and what was the nature ot the 
"interest of the district" which their adoption would 
promote, are unmistakably discerned. But to make assur- 
ance doubly sure, and to unfailingly indicate the measures 
to be adopted and the interests to be promoted, in the 
very next sentence he himself pointed them out by dis- 
closing the proposition of Gardoqui. lie wrote : 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 171 

" lit private conferences I have had ivith Mr. Gardoqui, the Spanish Minis- 
ter, at this place, I have been assured hy him in the most explicit terms, that if 
Kentiirk)/ null declare her independence, and empower some proper person to 
ne(/ofiate ivith him that he has authority, and will engage to open the navigation 
of the Mississippi, for (lie exportation of their produce, on terms of mutual ad- 
vantage. But that this privilege NEVER can be extended to them 
WHILE PART OF THE UNITED STATES, by reason of commercial 
treaties existing betiveen that court and other powers of Europe. As there is 
no reason to doubt the sincerity of this declaration, I have tliought 
proper to communicate it to a few confidential friends in tlie District, 
with his permission, not doubting but that they will make a prudent 
use of the information, which is in part confirmed by dispatches yester- 
day received by Congress from Mr. Carmichael, our minister at that 
court, the contents of which I am not at liberty to disclose." * 

This leaves no room for cavil. The man who runs may 



* The following is the full text of the letter referred to, viz : 

" New York, July 10, 1788. 

''Dear Sir : — An answer to your favour of the 16th of March was to- 
gether with several other letters, put into the hands of one of General 
Harmar's officers, who set out in May last for the Ohio, and who prom- 
ised to forward them to the district ; but I fear that they have miscar- 
ried, as I was a few' days ago informed that his orders had been counter- 
manded, and that he had been sent to the garrison at West Point. 

" Indeed I have found it almost impracticable to transmit a letter to 
Kentucky, as there is scarce any communication between this place and 
that country. A post is now established from this place to fort Pitt, to 
set out once in two weeks, after the 20th inst., this will render the com- 
munication easj^ and certain. Before this reaches you, I expect you 
will have heard the determination of Congress relative to the separa- 
tion of Kentucky, as a copy of the proceedings has been forwarded to 
the district by the secretary of Congress a few days ago. 

" It was not in my power to obtain a decision earlier than the 3d in- 
stant. Great part of the winter and spring there was not a representa- 
tion of the states sufficient to proceed to this business, and after it was 
referred to a grand committee, tjicy could not he prevailed upon to report, a 
majority of them being opposed, to the measure. The eastern states would 
not, nor do I think they ever vnll, assent to the admission of the district 
into the union, as an independent state, unless Vermont, or the prov- 
ince of ]\Iaine, is brought forward at the same time. 

" The change which has taken place in the general government is 
made the ostensible objection to the measure ; but the jealousy of the 
growing importance of the tvestern country, and an unwillingness to add a vote 
to tlie southern interest, are tJie real caiisen of opposition, and I am inclined to 
believe that they will exist to a certain degree even under the new govern- 
ment to which the application is referred by Congress. The question 
which the district will now have to determine upon will be : Whether 
or not it will be more expedient to continue the connection with the 



172 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

read. The independent state to which alone the privilege 
would be granted must be a state out of the Union. This 

State of Virginia, or to declare their independence and proceed tn frame, a 
constitution of government? 'Tis generally expected that the latter will be 
the determination, as you have proceeded too far to think of relinquish- 
ing the measure, and the interest of the district will render it alto/jether inex- 
pedient to continue in your present situation until an application for ad- 
mission into the union can be made in a constitutional mode, to the 
new government. 

" This step will, in my opinion, tend to preserve unanimity, and will 
enable you to adopt with effect such measures as may be necessary to promote the 
interest of the district. In private conferences which I have had with Mr. Gar- 
doqui, the Spanish minister, at this place, I have been assured by him in the 
most explicit terms, that if Kentucky will declare her independence 

AND EMPOWER SOME PROPER PERSON TO NEGOTIATE WITH HIM, that he haS 

authority, and will engage to open the navigation of the Mississippi, for the 
exportation of their produce, on terms of mutual advantage. But 

THAT THIS PRIVILEGE CAN NEVER BE EXTENDED TO THEM WHILE PART 

OF THE United States, by reason of commercial treaties existing be- 
tween that court and other powers of Europe. As there is no reason to 
doubt the sincerity of this declaration, I have thought proper to com- 
municate it to a few confidential friends in the district, with his permis- 
sion, not doubting but that they will make a prudent use of the infor- 
mation which is in part confirmed by dispatches yesterday received by 
Congress from Mr. Carmichael, our minister at that court, the contents 
of which I am not at liberty to disclose. 

" Congress is now engaged in framing an ordinance for putting the 
new government into motion ; it is not yet complete, but as it now 
stands the elections are to be made in December, and the new Congress 
to meet in February ; but it may undergo alterations. Ten states have 
ratified — this state is now in session — what the result of their delibera- 
tions will be, is as yet doubtful ; two-thirds of the members are opposed, 
but 'tis probable they may be influenced by motives of expediency. 

" North Carolina will adopt; time alone can determine how far the 
new government will answer the expectations of its friends ; my hopes 
are sanguine, the change was necessary. 

" I fear, should not the present treaty at Muskingum prove success- 
ful, that we shall have an Indian war on all our borders. I do not ex- 
pect that the present Congress will in that case be able to take any 
effectual measures for our defence. 

"There is not a dollar in the federal treasury which can be appropri- 
ated to that purpose. I shall leave this place shortly, and expect to be 
at the September term. 

" I have enjoyed my usual good state of health, and have spent my 
time here agreeably. 

" I am, with great esteem, your humble servant, 

J. Brown." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 173 

Kentucky would have been had Mr. Brown's advice been 
heeded or had his wishes prevailed. For there is no one 
so simple as to believe that the man who thus communi- 
cated the proposals of Spain, 2vith the permission of her 
minister, did so only to those whom he supposed would 
reject the offers ; nor can it be credited that the man who 
thus urged others to take the first step necessary in the 
programme, in order that Kentucky might be in a posi- 
tion to " adopt such measures as may be necessary to pro- 
mote the interest of the district," by securing the privilege 
of navigating the Mississippi, was not himself in favor of 
all the other measures necessary to promote that interest 
and to secure the tempting prize extended in the Span- 
iard's seducing hand. 

Muter did not receive this letter until the fall of the 
year in which it was written. Its nature and the peculiar 
circumstances of the public situation rendered it inexpe- 
dient to give it general publicity. In his perplexity and 
anxiety, however, he exhibited it to Colonel Thomas Mar- 
shall, whose neighbor he had become on removing from 
Danville to what was then Fayette, and is now Woodford- 
county. At the time he exhibited it to no one else, but spoke 
of its contents to such men as Colonel Crockett, Colonel 
John Allen, and Colonel Edwards. * When the letter 



* James Markham Marshall having publistied an extract from Brown's 
letter to Muter, which he had obtained from the latter for publication, 
Muter addressed to the Lexington Gazette a letter in which he explained 
the circumstances under which he had consented to the publication. 
This letter was published in the Gazette on the 4th of September, 1 790. 
It was republished in the Westerri World, in the Palladium and in the 
Gazatte, in September, 1806. After briefly stating the publication which 
had been made by James M. Marshall, and his own unwillingness to be 
understood as having been actuated by a desire to injure John Brown 
in consenting to the publication, Muter wrote, viz : 

" It has always been a fixed principle with me that a private or con- 
fidential letter ought not to be communicated to any person whatever ; 
but, this extends not to cases where, I think, the public intered and safety 
may be concerned ; in such cases my duty as a citizen with me supercedes 
every other consideration. 

Mr. Browns letter to me came to hand in tlie fall of 17S8, and I knew that 
letters from him, similar to that to me had been received mucii earlier, 



174 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

was received by Muter, James Markliam, the third son of 
Colonel Thomas Marshall, had not come into the district. 



even previous to the sitting of the convention in the month of July of 
that year ; and that a letter or a part of a letter from him was read in 
convention. When a total separation was in contemplation, I was of opinion 
that Mr. Brown's letter had weight in the convention in inducing people to think 
such a measure was right. That, however, was a measure I was warmly 
opposed to ; and therefore I considered it my indispensable duty to do 
every thing in my power to prevent it from taking place ; and for that 
purpose, as I knew Colonel Marshall thought as I did vith respect to it, I showed 
the letter to him, and consulted with him as to the steps it M^as neces- 
sary to take to effect the purpose both of us had in view, and withal to 
bring it about." 

[In republishing an extract from this letter of Muter, Littell, in his 
defense of Brown and Innes, in 1806, omitted the foregoing, which 
made disclosures it was desired to conceal. But what follows was pub- 
lished in Littell's " Narrative," viz :] 

" As a letter from Mr. Brown had been read in the convention (that 
of July, 1788,), (though, as I was not a member, I did not know certainly, 
whether the whole or a part only had been read, or whether it had, as 
is customary, lain on the table for the inspection and consideration of 
the members,) I conceived it to be no breach of confidence to show his 
(Brown's) letter to me, to Colonel Marshall, or to speak of it when it 
.became the subject of conversation, even if the principle mentioned 
above, had been entirely out of the question. Soon after Mr. James Mar- 
shall's arrival in the district, he told me he had been informed I had re- 
ceived a letter from Mr. Brown, containing matters of public concern, 
mentioned a part of the contents and expressed a wish to see it. I did 
show it to him, because I thought it better that he should form his 
opinion of its contents from what he read himself, than that he should 
judge of them from what was repeated to him from memory, where 
possibly there might be some mistake that might mislead him. After 
this, when I supposed the business of a total separation to be quite at an end, 
I never showed the letter to any person whatever ; and I even avoided 
as much as possible, making it the subject of conversation." 

The letter then went on to tell the circumstances of the duel between 
Brown and Marshall which had been on the tapis. " When I was in 
Mercer in July last, I was told by two gentlemen at different times, that 
Mr. Marshall, when questioned by Mr. James Brown, with respect to his 
having spoken to the injury of his brother's character, he said that he 
partly formed his opinion of his brother's conduct from what was con- 
tained in the letter above alluded to. ... I had not, however, be- 
fore I received the information above mentioned, ever heard that Mr. 
Marshall had reflected on Mr. Brown's conduct, from the time he be- 
came a candidate. A few days before I set off for Fayette August 
Court, Mr. Marshall came to my house, and requested that I would fur- 
nish him with Mr. Brown's letter to me, or that I would carry it to 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 175 

But soon after he did come into it he spoke of the letter 
to Muter, manifested his knowledge of a part of its con- 



Lexington. I told him I would carry it with me, and accordingly did so. 
When I got to Lexington I found it to be the common talk of the town, 
that a duel was to be fouglit, between Mr. Marshall and Mr. (James) 
Brown. On Wednesday forenoon Mr. Marshall applied to me for the 
letter. I refused to give it to him, but told him I would attend at any 
time and place to produce it, if necessary. He answered that, that 
probably would not do, because when he wanted to make use of the 
letter, there might be neither time nor opportunity to send for me ; I 
told him then that I would give him an extract from the letter, which I 
should accompany with my reasons for giving the extract, and for ever 
showing the letter at all. I was anxious to prevent a duel from taking 
place ; and particularly so to do every thing in my power for that pur- 
l)0se, without publicly appearing in the business; and from circum- 
stances I was led to believe, that, an accommodation, might probably 
take place and that the production of the letter or an extract from it 
might lead to it. I, therefore, fui-nished Mr. Marshall with an extract 
from the letter, accompanied with a statement of my reasons for doing 
so, and restricted him to show it to Mr. Brown only, or to one or two 
more gentlemen, with his approbation. I left town on Tuesday. On 
the Friday evening following, Mr. Marshall came to my house, and re- 
quested that, I would consent to the publication of the extract in his 
possession. I told him I was averse to doing so, because T did not wish to 
injure Mr. (John) Brown, nor even to appear in the business at all. He 
urged, that he had been accused of telling a falsity, and that he had no 
other way, as matters stood, of vindicating his character from a charge 
so injurious to it. I told him then that I would give him an answer in 
the morning. In the morning I told him, I wished and hoped the busi- 
ness could be done without the publication he requested, and that I was 
willing to come forward when properly called upon and disclose every 
thing in my power ; but on his urging that, as the matter was now be- 
come public, nothing but the publication could vindicate his character, 
with respect to his having told a falsehood concerning the letter, I con- 
sented that in case of absolute necessity, he might publish the piece 
I had furnished him with, in which the extract was contained ; but that 
he must publish the whole if he published at all." 

As this explanation of Muter was published in 1790, before the estab- 
lishment of Kentucky as a state, and while the matter of a separation 
from Virginia tuas still pending, the reader will perceive that the ex- 
pression : •' After this, when I supposed the business of a total separation to 
be quite at an end " could only have referred to the business of a separation 
from the Union as well as from Virginia. It exhibits, beyond question, 
Muter's construction of Brown's letter, and of the business to which it 
related, and which he had, with Colonel Marshall, been a main factor 
in defeating. His solicitude for Brown's reputation is apparent in his 



176 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tents, and requested to see the letter itself. Deeming it 
better that the younger Marshall might form his opinion 
from a personal inspection rather than from hearsay, 
Muter complied with his request. In 1790, James Mark- 
liam Marshall, then a young man of twenty-six, became a 
candidate for Congress against John Brown, the incum- 
bent, and during the canvass he charged Brown, (who 
was at the time in New York), Wilkinson and others, with 
liaving conspired to illegally separate Kentucky from Vir- 
ginia and the Union, and then, as an independent state, to 
form an alliance with Spain. Violent exception to this 
was taken by James Brown, the younger, bolder, more 
talented, and far more amiable and lovable brother of his 
antagonist. In reply to the demands of the latter for the 
grounds of this accusation, James Markham Marshall re- 
ferred to John Brown's letter to Muter as the circumstance 
on which he had mainly formed his opinion and based his 
charge ; and he then described its contents. By fiercely 
denouncing and vehemently denying Marshall's statement, 
that his brother had written such a letter, James Brown, 
by plain implication, conceded that if Marshall's premises 
were correct his conclusion was sound. But the issue of 
veracity made by Brown gave rise to a bitter controversy 
which culminated in an arrangement for a duel — which 
was never fought. Marshall's persistent demands that the 
letter should be made public as the only means then left 
of establishing the truth of what he had said, which had 
been impeached by James Brown, finally secured the con- 
sent of Muter to the publication of an extract therefrom, 
which was made in the Lexington Gazettem August, 1790. 
Its contents gave to the younger Marshall the public and 
triumphant vindication that he desired. 

It is noteworthy that no demand for the publication of 
the lettei" itself, to show that its contents were not as rep- 



guarded and mild expressions, but the truth appears under all the 
gloss. 

The context of the card indicates that his consent to the publication 
of the extract from Brown's letter was obtained after the duel had been 
"declared off." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 177 

resented, was made by James Brown. A century later a 
grandson of John Brown, while denouncing Muter as 
"incurring the contempt of violated conlidence" in giv- 
ing the letter " to Marshall as material for a political cam- 
paign," (wliich is not correct) concealed from the public 
the circumstances that made the publication at once justi- 
fiable and necessary.* When, in the controversy which 
broke out in 1806, the letter was desired for publication 
by those who had revived the charges made by James M. 
Marshall, the issues of the Lexington Gazette for the whole 
period covering the publication of the letter, the contro- 
versy between James Brown and James M. Marshall, and 
the pending duel between them, in 1790, were found to 
be conveniently missing from the files of the paper.f 

The only copy of the Gazette containing the letter 
then known to be in existence was in the possession of 
Alexander Scott Bullitt. However, the "Western World 
w^orried and hectored poor Muter, until he republished it in 
the Palladium, in 1806, together with a letter he had pub- 
lished in 1790, which explained the circumstances of his 
having exhibited Brown's letter to Colonel Marshall and 
his furnishing the extract to James M. Marshall, and ac- 
companied both with another letter amplifying that expla- 
nation. Yet John Brown deemed it inexpedient to admit 
his letter to Muter into the pamphlet he had induced and 
paid Littell to write in his defense. The Muter letter was 
excluded from that pamphlet, which nowhere admits, but 
evades, and tries to cover up, the fact that the overture of 
Gardoqui to Brown distinctly contemplated the with- 
drawal of Kentucky from the Union ; and disingenuously 
and deceitfully endeavors to produce the impression, that 
a letter of Colonel Marshall to Washington, which repre- 
sented the letter of Brown to Muter as stating the separa- 
tion of Kentucky from the Union to be a condition 
required by Spain as the price of her own promised 

*" Political Beginnings, page 175. 

t The only known file, the one kept by Bradford, who published the 
Gazette, is in the Lexington library, to which the curious reader is re- 
ferred for corroboration of the above. 

12 



178 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

concession, was " as unfavorable a*s possible," and the 
creation of prejudice and jealousy. 

The editor of the Western World possessed a glimmering 
of the truth, but was wanting in accurate knowledge of 
details. In one of his earlier editorials, he published an 
erroneous statement concerning the letter of Brown to 
Colonel McDowell. This drew from the latter a card, in 
1806, in which he corrected the error, and gave from mem- 
ory the ipsissima verba of the " sliding letter " he had re- 
ceived from Brown. From it the statement in Brown's 
letter to Muter, which made known and emphasized the 
condition of separation from the Union required by Spain, 
had been carefully omitted by the facile Brown. The let- 
ter to McDowell was the play of Hamlet, with the part of 
the noble Dane left out. So the adroit Mr. Brown pub- 
lished in the Littell pamphlet McDowell's account of the 
"sliding letter" Brown had written to him, and thus 
vouched for its accuracy ; then, suppressing the letter he had 
actually written to Muter, and, protesting that Colonel 
Marshall had given a prejudiced account of that letter, he 
complacently assured the generous and confiding public 
that the letter to Muter " contained the same account of the 
conference with Gardoqui that the letter of Colonel JlcDowell 
did." Exultingly snapping his lingers in the face of his 
adversary, and glorying in this highly intellectual achieve- 
ment, he then and thus dismissed the Muter letter and the 
whole subject of the conference with Gardoqui ; " of this 
conference I trust enough has been said," 

Had the letter to Muter really been the same as the let- 
ter to McDowell, it would have been published in the 
pamphlet. Because it was not the same, but explicitly 
stated that the privileges of navigating the Mississippi 
would never be granted to Kentucky whilst a part of the 
Union, the trick was resorted to of suppressing it, pub- 
lishing the " sliding letter " to McDowell which did not 
contain that statement, and of falsely pretending that the 
accounts of the conference with Gardoqui given in the 
two letters were identical. As Hary Innes published in 
that pamphlet a pretended copy of his letter to Randolph 



The Spanish Consjnracy. 179 

from which he omitted the inconvenient words " Revolt 
from the Union," which were in the original; — so John 
Brown published therein the card of McDowell, which 
did not contain the words, " But that this privilege can 
never be extended to them while part of the United States" 
which was in the Muter letter, and asserted that the ac- 
counts given in the two letters were the same. These 
sujjpressions were not accidental ; probably suggested by 
Brown, they were concerted between the friends, and had 
a common object. The grandson of Brown discovered the 
manipulations, understood their nature, evidently admired, 
and certainly imitated them. If this incident has no other 
historic value, it is most significant as illustrating the 
methods employed by the " first Senator from Kentucky " 
to conceal himself from an inconvenient scrutiny. 



180 The S'panish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The July Convention — The " Sliding Letter " of Brown to McDowell 
Shown to Innes, but to no One Else — Innes Connects it with Wil- 
kinson's Engagement with Miro, and Heartily Approves — Com- 
municates ITS Contents to the Faithful — A Rrsolution to Vio- 
lently Separate from Virginia without an Act for the Purpose 
IS Proposed by Either AVilkinson or AVallace, and is Advocated 
BY Both, as well as by Innes and Sebastian — The Evasion Prac- 
ticed BY AA'^allace in Regard Thereto — AA'^ilkinson's Account of 
the Convention and the Objects of the Resolution — The Mis- 
statements of Colonel John Mason Brown. 

Before, but on the eve of the assembling of the con- 
vention, at Danville, on the 28th of July, 1788, Colonel 
Samuel McDowell, the stated president of all these several 
conventions, received the official notification of the action 
of Congress on the application of the district, which had 
been forAvarded by that body. At the same time, and 
most probably by the same messenger, he received the 
letter of John BroA\^n, which ascribed that action to un- 
Avorthy and hostile motives ; inclosed in which Avas the 
" diding letter,''' Avritten on a detached piece of paper and 
marked " confidential," Avhich only partially stated the 
proposition of Gardoqui. !N"o quorum having assembled 
on the first day, the oflEicial paper Avas not communicated 
to the convention until the 29th. The non-confidential 
letter of Brown to Colonel McDowell was .then also read. 
But the "confidential" " sliding letter " concerning the 
conference Avith Gardoqui Avas not read in the convention, 
nor was it exhibited by McDoaa^cU to any one but Innes,* 



* In the case of Innes v. Marshall, Colonel McDowell's deposition was 
taken in behalf of Innes, who propounded this interrogatory to the wit- 
ness: 

"6thQ. AA'^as not that part of his (Brown's) letter to you relative to 
his conversation with the Spanish minister, Gardoqui, generalh' known 
to the members of the convention who voted their thanks to Mr. Brown 
at the time such vote was taken ?" 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 181 

nor spoken of by him during the convention to any other 
human being, Innes had been previously informed by 
"Wilkinson of his arrangement with Miro for the separa- 
tion of Kentucky from the Union, and had entered heart- 
ily into the scheme, as stated in the letter already quoted 
from Wilkinson to Miro. He thus understood at once 
the full and true nature of the Gardoqui overture, which 
was but imperfectly disclosed in the " sliding letter " to 
McDowell, and naturally associated it with the scheme of 
Wilkinson. Delighted, he exclaimed to McDowell : "It 
will do, it will do," and forthwith proceeded to impart the 
contents of the coniidential " sliding letter " to those whom 
he supposed could be trusted.* 

That a feeling of keen disappointment pervaded the 
entire convention was but natural. That this should be 
greatl}^ aggravated by John Brown's letter, ascribing the 

To this McDowell replied : 

"Answer: I never showed it to any other person than the plaintiff 
during the sitting of that convention, that I recollect, or spoke of it to 
any other person during that convention ; and my reason was, it was 
headed ' confidential.' " 

The answer was a sore disappointment to Innes, as it made it clear 
that, if any other member than himself had any information of the 
" sliding letter," it was given by him, in his efforts to secure immediate 
action cutting off from Virginia, and placing Kentucky out of the 
Union. Colonel John Mason Brown found it convenient and advisable 
to exclude this question and answer from the " Political Beginnings." 

* In the examination of ^McDowell, the defendant put the following 
question to him . 

" Question : Aboiit the time of the convention (of July) aforesaid 
sitting in Danville, were you present with the plaintiff, Innes, when the 
subject of erecting Kentucky into an independent state, and placing 
her on the footing with Vermont ; — and did the plaintiff approve of the 
measure, saying : — it will do, it will do : or words to that effect ?" 

"Answer: About the time alluded to, upon showing the plaintiff", 
Innes, the paper enclosed in Mr. Brown's letter, he said: it will do, it 
will do — and an allusion was made to Vermont, which would be the 
one with respect to Kentucky— if erected into an independent state." 

This testimony shows the idea entertained by McDowell. But John 
Brown knew from Gardoqui that the proposition was to separate Ken- 
tucky absolutely from the Union, and form an alliance with Spain ; and 
while it was not declared in the " sliding letter," and that to Muter had 
not then been received, Innes knew from Wilkinson what the real pur- 
pose was. 



182 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

action of Congress to hostile motives, was exactly what 
he bad calculated and the object for which be had writ- 
ten. In the convention of 1786-7, when the news of the 
new act of separation was received, in spite of efforts to 
inflame which were made by some, " the momentary vexa- 
tion yielded to a sense of duty and a love of peace." But 
in this of July, 1788, in which Wilkinson was ceaselessly 
active in the discharge of his engagement with Miro, and 
John Brown, though absent in person, was present in the 
effect of his letters misrepresenting the motives of Con- 
gress, " there were," according to Marshall, " observable 
the most deep-felt vexation, a share of ill temper border- 
ing on disaffection to the legal course of things, and some 
strong symptoms of assuming independent government" 
This was a very moderate and conservative expression of 
the situation, and of the efforts then made to precipitate 
the tirst step in the plan arranged by Wilkinson with 
Miro, and which John Brown had promised G-ardoqui to 
return home and " aid." The navigation of the Missis- 
sippi was pressed into the argument " in favor of complet- 
ing the constitution and organizing government without 
delay." And all the time Wilkinson was there, dropping 
obscure hints that the commerce which Congress could 
not secure was awaiting Kentucky if she would only 
stretch forth her hand to take it ; and, as it is certain that 
the contents of the "sliding letter" were also known at 
least to the faithful, one can readily conceive the activity 
of Junes. It was clearly understood by all, that every legal 
power of the convention to frame a constitution or to or- 
ganize government had termiiuited by the ftiilure of the 
conditions expressed in the law itself. And that this was 
fully comprehended by those who most zealously favored 
a resort to revolution could not be more plainly demon- 
strated than it was on the face of this resolution, which 
was proposed : 

" A resolution, declaring that the powers of this convention so far as 
depends on the acts of the legislature of Virginia were annulled by the 
Resolutions of Congress, and resolving that it was the duty of this con- 
vention as the representatives of the people to proceed to frame a con- 
stitution of government for this district, and to submit the same to their 



Tlie Spanish Conspiracy. 183 

consideration \A-ith siicli advice relative thereto as emergency suggests, 
was read. 

Ordered ttiat the said resokition he committed to a committee of the 
whole convention." 

The official report of tlie proceedings of the convention, 
by Thomas Todd does not give the name of the author of 
this resokition. But during the controversies of 1806, it 
was attributed by some to Caleb Wallace, while others al- 
leged that it was offered by Wilkinson and seconded by 
Wallace. The testimony of Governor Greenup in the case 
of Lines v. Marshall is confirmatory of those who attrib- 
uted it to Wallace. * It was moved by one and seconded 



■••■ In that case the following questions were propounded to and an- 
swers given by Greenup, who was a witness for Innes, viz : 

"6th: Did you in July, 1788, hear a motion made and advocated by 
either James Wilkinson, Caleb Wallace, Benjamin Sebastian, or the 
plaintiff, to separate the district of Kentucky from the State of Virginia 
and the United States, and form a connexion with the Spanish govern- 
ment ? 

" Answer: T did not hear such a motion from any person. 

"7th: Did you in the convention of November, 1788, hear such a 
proposition as stated in the preceding interrogatory made and advocated 
by either of the above named persons or John Brown, who was then 
also a member ? 

" Answer : I did not. I think Mr. Wallace submitted a resolution for 
proceeding to frame a constitution and submitting it to Congress, with- 
out applying again to the State of Virginia, observing that she had al- 
ready given her assent to the measure and it would save time, but it 
was overruled." 

The question related to a resolution embracing, in direct terms, three 
propositions: violent separation from Virginia; withdrawal from the 
Union ; and a connection with Spain. Humphrey Marshall certainly had 
never stated that a resolution in those terms had ever been presented by 
the men named or anyone else. While Greenup denied, and truthfully 
denied, that a resolution in those terms had been offered, he was honest 
enough to admit that one had been presented for separating from Virginia 
and assuming sovereignty, contrary to the act of the assembly and without 
another application to Virginia, and he was possibly correct in naming 
Wallace as its author. He was mistaken, however, as to the time when 
the resolution was offered by Wilkinson or AVallace, who was a member 
of the July convention, w"hen it was presented, and w'as not a member 
of that of November. His recollection was also at fault concerning the 
Urim of the resolution, which contained no suggestion to " submit the con- 
stitution to Congress." And he was probably equally at fault in regard to 
the remarks made bv Wallace in that connection. 



184 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

by the other and was advocated by both. It was a propo- 
sition to violently separate from Virginia, and to assume 
independence and sovereignty, as had been urged by Wil- 
kinson in 1786. Its adoption, had it possessed validity, 
and could it have been carried into eft'ect, would have 
separated Kentucky from Virginia and from the Confed- 
eration, without connecting her with the new Union, 
would have left her free to form alliances where she chose, 
and would almost necessarily liave placed her in antago- 
nism with Virginia and the Union. Sebastian and Innes, 
to whom his arrangement with Miro had been communi- 
cated by Wilkinson, and Wilkinson himself, acted in con- 
cert with Wallace in endeavoring to procure the passage 
of this resolution ;* — a fact which indicates what it was 
hoped the passage of the resolution would accomplish. 

That the construction placed upon the resolution at the 
time by its opponents was, that it was intended to separate 
Kentucky not only from Virginia, but also from the 
United States; and that it was combatted on that ground, 
is conclusively proved by the oath of Judge John Allen, 
of Bourbon, who was one of the purest men and ablest 
lawyers of that day in the district, f The testimony of 
Judge Allen was corroborated by that of James French, a 
delegate from Madison, who, while he could not recollect 
" that any member directly advocated a separation from 
the United States," [it was not good policy to do that], 
yet did recall that " the tenor of argument on one side 
was for patience under the privation of the trade of the 

* Judge John Allen, of Bourbon, testified, in the case of Lines v. 
Marshall, that he was a member of the convention of July, 1788 ; that, 
" There was a party in the convention of that date who were in tavor of 
creating Kentucky into an independent government, and of organizing 
the same witliout an act of the Virginia assembly or of Congress for that 
purpose, and Colonel Hary Innes was of that party; " and that "Gen- 
eral James Wilkinson and Mr. Benjamin Sebastian were members of 
said convention and were both in favor of the separation," as just 
stated. 

t On cross-examination Judge Innes asked Judge Allen the following 
questions and received the following answers, viz : 

" 1st : In answer to the second interrogatory of the defendant, you 
state that there was a party in the convention of July, 17S8, who were 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 185 

Mississippi, and adherence to the United States ; on the 
other, " that it was the design of the United States to re- 
strict the western conntry, and to discourage its growth 
and popuLation, by an interested and partial policy." 

Mr. French stated that " Mr. Innes was a speaker, and 
among those who were declaring against the hostile policy 
of the United States to the western country;"* that the 
course of Innes' " argument was that it was the design of 
the United States, more to curb than to protect the power 
of the western country," and he remembered that at the 
conclusion of one of Innes' speeches he said : " Mr, Presi- 
dent, when I reflect on the treatment of the United States 
to this country, I feel, I can not tell how, — I feel, sir, like 
shedding blood." He was equally explicit as to the utter- 



in favor cf erecting Kentucky into a separate and independent govern- 
ment without obtaining an act from Virginia or from Congress, and that 
the plaintiff was one who composed that party ; name them and state 
wliether tliey or either of them introduced any resolution in convention 
to that efiect ? 

" Answer : General James Wilkinson, Benjamin Sebastian, Harry 
Innes, the plaintiff, Caleb Wallace, a member from Madison by the 
name of Adams, and I believe some others, who are not at this time 
recollected. General Wilkinson was the leader of this party. I can 
not recollect whether any resolution to the effect was offered, but it is 
strongljr impressed on my mind that there was. The convention had 
been in session some days before I arrived there. 

" Question by the same : To what intent did the proposition for a 
separation go, i. e., was it a separation from the United States absolutely, 
or a separation from Virginia only, and then to become a member of the 
Federal Union ? 

"Answer: I understood the proposition then made, fand it has ever 
since been impressed on my mind,) that the separation proposed was to 
erect a government independent of the State of Virginia and of the 
United States." 

This deponent thought the proposition, the effect, though not the 
terms, of which was as he stated, was brought forward by General Wil- 
kinson, but stated circumstances tending to show he might have been 
mistaken as to that. 

"•■• Question by the plaintiff: Did the plaintiff take an active part in 
the measure alluded to in the preceding answer ; /. e., did he advocate 
the measure in the convention ? 

Answer : I did consider the plaintiff as one of the principal men who 
advocated the measure, to the best of my recollection ; he did speak on 
the subject. 



186 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

ances of Caleb Wallace and Sebastian, as to their indul- 
gence in the fiercest denunciations of the conduct of the 
United States to the west, as to the leadership of Wilkin- 
son, as to the open declarations of George Adams, his 
colleague from Madison, in conversation, in favor of a 
separation from the United States, and that " the proposed 
object of those who were so much displeased with the 
conduct of the United States towards this country, as well 
as he could recollect, ivas to obtain the trade of the Missis- 
sippi — which they alleged was withheld from them by the 
United States; or, at least, that the United States had 
been grossly and intentionally negligent in procuring the 
trade of that river, considered by them as indispensably 
necessary to the welfare of this country." * 

In point of character these men were the equals of any 
other in the convention, and it has never been charged 
that they were the political rivals or personal enemies of 
any of the men whom their testimony condemns. If they 
are worthy of credit it can scarcely be said that the ac- 
count given by Humphrey Marshall of the spirit and pur- 
pose by which Wilkinson, Sebastian, Innes and their fol- 
lowers were actuated, or of their personal utterances, was 
colored by prejudice and malignity. 

But there are not wanting proofs from contemporary 
records that one of the issues raised in this convention 
was that of a separation from the Union. In a communi- 
cation published over the signature " Cornplanter," (Dr. 
Ebenezer Brooks), in the Lexington Gazette, of September 
13, 1788, the proposition is thus distinctly stated : " 2nd. 
Whether a separation from Virginia and unconnected with 
Congress would be advisable." ..." Fourthly, it is urged 
that a separation would speedily 7??'oci<re us the free naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi." ..." When I set down to this 
business I intended to have said a few things on the sub- 
ject of assuming a separation independent of Congress,'' etc. 
A communication, which is attributed to James Morrison 

* James French was an educated man, of strong sense, and the father 
of Judge Richard French, afterwards one of the most astute of the Dem- 
ocratic politicians. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 187 

ill the marginal notes on the file of the same paper, pub- 
lished September 20, 1788, refers to the " ill judged and in- 
temperate pro-position of two or three men in the late convention^'' 
and of the " crude reconimendatio7is of that conventioyi," by 
which the proposition of Wilkinson and Wallace, and its 
advocates, were intended. It is seen to be undoubtedly 
true, as stated in Marshall's History and reaffirmed by 
Butler, who wrote in opposition to' Marshall, that the idea 
of disunion "was combatted in the public prints of the 
time," and must have been proposed. Xor is testimony 
wanting from the leader of this party in the July conven- 
tion as to the purposes for which the resolution of Wil- 
kinson and Wallace was proposed and urged. Under 
date of February 12, 1789, General Wilkinson wrote to 
Miro to inform the Intendant of his efforts and their fail- 
ure. Referring to the action of Congress upon the appli- 
cation of the district, he said : 

" From this proceeding of Congress it resulted that the convention 
was of opinion, that our proposed independence and separation from 
Virginia not being ratified, its mission and powers were at an end, and 
we found ourselves in the alternative, either of proceeding to declare 
our independence or of waiting according to the recommendation of 
Congress. This was the state of affairs when the Honorable Caleb 
Wallace, one of our Supreme Judges, the Attorney General Innes, and 
Benjamin Sebastian proposed a prompt separation from the American 
Union, and advocated with intrepidity the necessity of the measure. 
The artifice of Congress was exposed, its proceedings reprobated, the 
consequences of depending on a body whose interests were opposed to ours 
were depicted in the most vivid colors, and the strongest motives were set 
forth to justify the separation." [Gaj^arre, page 226.] 

These " strongest motives " were the inducements held out 
by Spain ! — the navigation of the Mississippi, which could 
be had only through disunion! But more convincing 
evidence still of the intended effect of this resolution thus 
introduced, advocated by Wallace, and urged by Wilkin- 
son and Sebastian and their friend Innes; and, had zY been 
adopted, of the measure it proposed : is the exceeding 
great care taken to exclude it from the Littell pamphlet. 
Other portions of the proceedings of the convention were 
published in that paper ; but this resolution was carefully 
omitted. * Nor is there the most distant admission in it. 



* The resolution which was finally adopted by the convention was 



188 The Spayiish Conspirac}j. 

that such a resolution was ever, at any time, ottered. The 
editor of the Western World blundered in stating that it had 
been oiiered by Wilkinson and seconded by "Wallace, in 
the November convention. His mistake was greedily 
seized upon. The proceedings of the November convention 
were obtained from Thomas Todd and were published in 
the Appendix to Littell ; but that portion of the proceed- 
ings of the July convention which contained this resolu- 
tion was suppressed. Great parade was made in the 
" Narrative " of the fact, that the official proceedings of 
the November convention showed that the resolution had 
7iot been offered at that meeting, * and over the further 
fact that Wallace was not even a member of the November 



published at the time in the Lexington Gazette, but tins resolution of 
Wilkinson and Wallace was kept out of sight. 

"■■■"The " Narrative of the Political Transactions," contains the following, 
referring to the statement that this resolution had been offered at the 
November convention of 1788 : 

" Here it was (in the November convention) that General Wilkinson 
read his treasonable memorial — here it was that Mr. Brown reported 
his treasonable conference — and here it was (as they say in their first 
number,) that General Wilkhi^nin nnulc a Irmsonable motion that they should 
proceed to form a separati' ciinxtiiiiHiMi Imhprndmt of the approbation of Vir- 
ginia. The reader will see from the Journal, that Wilkinson made no 
such motion, and that the motion which he did make, so far from tend- 
ing to so rapid a progress was of a retrograde tendency. Its object was 
not to proceed to do any thing, except to impart to the people at large 
the information which had been received by that body, and to await 
their future instructions. They say further, that this motion was 
seconded by .Judge W^allace, now of the Court of Appeals. It is pre- 
sumed that the falsehood of this assertion is sufficiently proved by 
showing that the motion was never made. But it could be proved by a 
thousand witnesses that Judge 'Wallace never seconded any motion 
whatever, which was made in that convention, for this plain reason, 
HE NEVER AVAS A MEMBER OF IT. And as if these men were not 
satisfied with being contradicted by all kinds of testimony, oral and 
written, living and dead, they have themselves in their twelfth number, 
proved by Dr. Brooke, one of their own witnesses, that Judge Wallace 
had no seat in that convention. They say further, that this motion was 
warmly supported by all those members who were supposed to be en- 
gaged in the negotiation with Gardoqui. I shall leave the reader to de- 
termine whether a motion which never was made could be warmly sup- 
ported, and to settle in his own mind what measure of confidence is due 
to men convicted of three palpable falsehoods in a single sentence." 



The Spanish Coyispiracy. 189 

convention ; while the fact that the resolution had been 
offered by Wallace, and advocated by Wilkinson, in the Jiili/ 
convention, was concealed. And thus the mistake of the 
editor as to the time, and, possibly, as to the person who 
oftered it, was branded as a malicious and baseless lie ; — 
when, as the reader will see, the only lie that was wantten in 
this connection was that which suppressed the official pro- 
ceedings which showed that the resolution had been 
offered in July, concealed the fact that it was then pre- 
sented by Wallace, and asserted that the " motion never ivas 
made." 

Whether this resolution was offered or seconded by him, 
it was all the same, the bantling of Caleb Wallace, who 
was one of the men who paid for the writing and publica- 
tion of Littell's " jSTarrative." It interferred with the line 
of defense adopted by Brown and Innes (who also paid 
for the writing and publication) and Wallace in that pro- 
duction. And it naturally, and for the same reasons, 
shared the fate of Brown's letter to Muter and of Innes' 
" Revolt from the Union," in his letter to Randolph ; — it was 
suppressed. 

In the deposition which Judge Wallace gave in behalf 
of his friend Innes, in the litigation with Humphrey Mar- 
shall, he replied to a niisleading question propounded by 
the plaintiff, that neither he, nor Innes, nor Sebastian, nor 
Wilkinson, nor any one else had, in the July convention, 
offered or advocated a proposition to " separate Kentucky 
from Virginia and from the Union, and to form a con- 
nection with Spain;" which it was not alleged had been 
done in terms. But he found it prudent to omit to men- 
tion, that he had himself offered or seconded and advocated 
a resolution to assume independence and sovereignty, to 
form a constitution and establish an independent govern- 
ment, and to violently separate from Virginia, the effect of 
which would have placed Kentucky outside of the Union ; 
that in one breath he had denounced Congress, and in the 
next urged his own and Wilkinson's measure as a means 
by which the navigation of the Mississippi could be ob- 
tained ; — all of which he had done if the evidence of good 



190 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

and true men, whose own conduct did not need to be con- 
cealed, is to be believed. He deemed it fitting to say that, 
when the information of the action of Congress was re- 
ceived, " it was conceived by the members of the conven- 
tion to be unnecessary and imp)roper to proceed to accom- 
plish the business for which they had been elected," — 
which was to form a constitution and organize govern- 
ment ; — leaving it to be inferred that this had been his 
own position, and concealing the fact that he had himself 
vehemently urged the convention to this " unnecessary 
and improper " proceeding. He had a splendid memory 
for things that nobody did; but in regard to what had ac- 
tually been done by Wilkinson, Sebastian, Innes and him- 
self, his mind was apparently a painful blank. 

But while he could not remember this resolution, nor 
his own and other speeches in its favor ; and while he 
could not, as he swore, even recollect whether Colonel 
Thomas Marshall was or was not a member of the July 
convention ; — yet his memory, so singularly treacherous 
in other respects, was as singularly convenient in recalling, 
that, as he alleged, " about that time, or shortly before, 
this deponent heard Colonel Marshall express great dis- 
satisfaction with Congress for having declined to decide 
on the application of the people of Kentucky to be erected 
into a separate state ; and declared that he was clear for 
proceeding to form a constitution of government and es- 
tablishing the district of Kentucky an independent state, 
and then apply for admission into the Union, not doubt- 
ing but it would be received without further delay." 
So that, if one could receive without examination this re- 
markable statement of Judge Wallace, as to his wonderful 
recollection, which diifered from that of any other human 
being as to Colonel Marshall's position and utterances, — 
he, who had oftered or seconded and had urged the resolu- 
tion, was in reality opposed to it as an " unnecessary and 
improper" proceeding; while Colonel Thomas Marshall, 
who, according to the concurrent testimony of all other 
contemporary witnesses, was, in jmblic, one of the earliest 
and most pronounced of the opponents of this and all 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 191 

similar revolutionary measures, was, in his 'private conver- 
sations, one of its staunchest advocates ! Had this most 
convenient and swift of witnesses "remembered" that 
Colonel Marshall was a member of the convention, and, as 
such, had sanctioned this movement, his statement could 
and would have been easily contradicted by those who were 
present, which Judge Wallace knew. But the peculiar 
advantage of remembering a private conversation with a 
man whose tongue had been silenced by death was one of 
which Judge Wallace was not unmindful. The dead man 
whom he wronged could not challenge his injurious state- 
ment; and, though the alleged recollection Avas inconsist- 
ent with all that Colonel Marshall did or said in public, 
and utterly irreconcilable with the recollections of all oth- 
ers of his utterances to them, yet no living witness could 
disprove this ingenious recollection of Judge Wallace as 
to what Colonel Marshall had privately said to him. 

Colonel John Mason Brown wished to have it appear, 
not simply that Colonel Marshall was inconsistent, but 
that he had a motive for his inconsistency ; that, with a 
full knowledge of Gardoqui's proposition, he had, as a 
member of the July convention, voted for the resolution 
of Wilkinson and Wallace ; that afterwards, and before 
the November convention, he had himself received and 
favorably entertained a proposition from Dr. Connolly, to 
withdraw Kentucky from the Union and place her under 
a British protectorate ; and that his opposition to the pol- 
icy of John Brown during the canvass preceding the No- 
vember convention, as well as his opposition in that con- 
vention, was influenced by Connolly and prompted by his 
desire to aid the latter. That for this object he opposed 
and defeated the patriotic efforts of Brown to secure an- 
other immediate application by Kentucky for admission 
into the Union ! 

To this line of argument, and to Colonel Brown's wish 
to shelter his grandfather behind the skirts of Colonel 
Marshall, the public is indebted, that the resolution con- 
cocted between Wilkinson and Wallace, which was sup- 
pressed by the Littell pamphlet, appeared in the " Political 



192 The Sjxmish Conspiracy. 

Eegiiinings." For that reason the motion which Wallace 
completely ignored in his deposition, and which the " Nar- 
rative " solemnly asserted '' was never made," is reproduced 
by Colonel Brown; and Wallace's statement of his alleged 
recollection of what Colonel Marshall had said twenty-iive 
years before is put by the side of the resolution ; — then, 
Colonel Brown informs his readers, that * " It is worth 
noticing at this point that even Thomas Marshall, after- 
wards so strenuous in his denunciation of every one who 
approved the immediate formation of a constitution and an 
immediate application to Co7i(/ress, was then in perfect accord 
with Wallace as to the legality, propriety, and expediency 
of immediate action." That Wallace himself did not re- 
gard the action which he and Wilkinson proposed as legal, 
is proved by the language of the resolution, which de- 
clares " that the powers of this convention, so far as depends 
on the acts of the Legislature of Virginia, were annulled 
by the resolutions of Congress." The power which he 
proposed to exert was the same revolutionary power which 
Wilkinson had contended, in 1786, resided in the people 
of the district, and which was above lauh The resolution 
itself also shows that it did not embrace (as it is certain 
neither its author nor its advocates contemplated) the idea 
of an " immediate application to Congress," nor of any ap- 
plication to Congress. Neither Wallace, nor Wilkinson, 
Sebastian, nor Innes was so illogical as to have expected 
that the Congress which had, for the most cogent reasons, 
just declined to act upon the application which had been 
made under all the forms of law and with the expressed 
sanction of Virginia, would grant another application 
made in an irregular manner and without the concurrence 
of the state from wliich the resolution proposed violently 
to separate the district. 

In the same train of reasoning. Colonel Brown alleges 
that " the general sentiment of prominent men in the con- 
vention was, as Wallace deposed, that uttered by Colonel 
Marshall "in favor of immediate action as above stated. 



Political Beginnings, page 1^ 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 193 

But Wallace did not thus depose. He did not say that 
Colonel Marshall was a member of the convention, but, 
on the contrary, could not remember whether he was or 
was not a member. He did not intimate that any one in 
the convention held the opinion stated by Colonel Brown. 
He even concealed the fact, that such a resolution as that 
which Wilkinson and he oifered and seconded was never 
offered in the convention, as well as the further fact that 
it had received his own approval. What he did say was, 
that the opinion he ascribed to Colonel Marshall " was be- 
lieved to be the sentiment of several respectable citizens of 
the district, and of so77ie who resided in other parts of the 
State of Virginia ;" and further, that " it was conceived by 
the members of the convention to be unnecessary and im- 
proper to proceed to form a constitution and organize gov- 
ernment." * Colonel Brown had read and understood 
the deposition to which he referred. 

One of the amusing features in all this mass of error is 
the contradictions between the positions taken in the de- 
fense of -John Brown and Innes, iu 1806, and those as- 
sumed by their latest and most deliberate and also most 
utterl}^ reckless champion, in 1890. In the Littell pam- 
phlet no pretense was made that Colonel Marshall was a 
member of the July convention, nor that he favored the 
resolution of Wilkinson and Wallace. On the contrary, 
it was denied that the resolution was ever offered. It was 
not pretended then that he had ever given countenance to 
such a scheme, either publicly or in his private conversa- 
tions. On the contrary, it was asserted in the communi- 
cations of " Franklin," written by one of the intimates 
and confidants of Brown, Innes, Sebastian, Wilkinson, 
and Wallace, that Colonel Marshall had, from the begin- 
ning, and all along, opposed any separation from Virginia, 
even with the consent of the General Assembly; and that 
he had been equally hostile to every effort to obtain the 
navigation of the Mississippi, in any manner. He was 
held up as an enemy to the interests, growth and advance- 



'■■■ Wallace's deposition, Lines v. Marshall, September 15, 1S13. 

13 



194 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

ment of the district, and to tlie desire of its people for 
local self government. This was the slander which his 
family were then called on to repel. And the motive at- 
tributed to him for this hostility was that he feared to lose 
his office of surveyor if Kentucky was separated from 
Virginia and erected into a state of the Union. It mat- 
tered not to his malicious calumniator that, the year be- 
fore, in 1787, Colonel Marshall had resigned his surveyorshij) 
in order to render himself eligible to a seat in the Virginia 
Assembly, to which he was elected and in which he served 
his constituents. The charge that he had opposed a 
legal separation from Virginia was effectually disposed 
of by Colonel Joseph Crockett, one of the heroes of Mon- 
mouth and of Yorktowu.* 

Colonel J. M. Brown quotes largely from the deposition 
of Christopher Greenup in the case of Imies v. Marshall. 
He discovered that Greenup was in error as to the resolu- 



* The subjoined is a copy of Colonel Crockett's letter to A. K. Mar- 
shall in refutation of the statement of " Franklin " referred to. It was 
appended to A. K. Marshall's letter, which is cited by Colonel Brown, 
and could not have been overlooked by him, viz : 

Jessamine County, October 3, 1806. 

Dear Sir : — In answer to your note of to-day, I can clearly state that 
I was long and intimately acquainted with Colonel Marshall, and the 
offices of civility were freely exchanged between us. In the commence- 
ment of the plan for separating from Virginia, I was myself opposed to 
the measure, as probably premature, and the arguments of Colonel 
Marshall convinced me that a separation was a proper measure — he 
pointed out various reasons, and many arguments in favor of a legal and 
constitutional separation. I was in the convention of November, 1788, 
with Colonel Marshall, and knew he was opposed to a violent separa- 
tion from the United States and took on that subject most decided 
grounds, but he was warmly in favor of a legal and constitutional sepa- 
ration. The charges of Franklin are not true. 

I am, dear sir, respectfully, 

Joseph Crockett. 

Alex. Marshall. 

Colonel Crockett intended to be understood that Colonel Marshall was 
in favor of a " legal and constitutional separation" from Virginia. There 
could have been no such thing as a " legal and constitutional separa- 
tion" from the United States. And that he was opposed to a "violent 
separation " from Virginia, which would also have "violently separated " 
Kentucky from the United States. 



JVie Spanish Conspiracy. 195 

tion having been offered by Wallace in the November con- 
vention, but accepted as correct the recollection that Wal- 
lace was its author. He knew that the defense made of 
his grandfather, Innes, Sebastian, Wilkinson and Wallace, 
in the Littell pamphlet, suppressed the resolution, and as- 
serted that such a " motion was never made." He de- 
tected the deceit. Whether his emotions were pleasant or 
otherwise at that detection, must have depended on 
whether he admired the cunning which he has imitated or 
felt contempt for the fraud disclosed to his view. While 
quoting Greenup as to the presentation and authorship of 
the resolution, he excludes from his book Greenup's state- 
ment, made in the same deposition, of his distinct recol- 
lection that he had heard Colonel Marshall express his 
opposition to the resolution he alleged to have been offered 
by Wallace, though this was not done as a member of the 
convention.* 

In his letter to Miro, of February 12, 1789, Wilkinson 
tells of the opposition made by Colonel Marshall and 

* Humphrey Marshall propounded to Greenup the following questions 
and received the following answers, viz : 

" Question 1st : Was there a party in Kentucky in 1788, who was for 
a separation of Kentucky from Virginia without an act of Virginia for 
that purpose, and were General Wilkinson, John Brown, Benjamin Se- 
bastian, the plaintiff", Caleb Wallace and others of that party? 

"Answer: I have stated in answer to the 7th interrogatory of the 
plaintiff, of a resolution or motion being stated to the convention to 
form a constitution without again applying to Virginia, and for the 
reason therein mentioned, but I know nothing of a party being formed 
for that purpose. 

" 2nd Q. : Were the late Colonel Thomas Marshall, the late Judge 
Muter, Colonel Joseph Crockett, Colonel John Edwards, and others in 
the convention of November, 1788, opposed to the party aforesaid, and 
in favor of a regular and legal separation ? 

" Answer : I can not say at this length of time whether all the gentle- 
men in the preceding interrogatory were present in November, 1788, but 
think they were. I knew of no party they opposed except it be the 
resolution or motion before mentioned. That resolution I am certain 
they were opposed to, and were in favor of again applying to the State of 
Virginia : this opinion I have heard most of the gentlemen express, as 
well as others who were also present." 

Greenup was the witness of Innes, and was personally hostile to H, 
Marshall. 



196 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Muter, before the assembling of the July convention, to 
his plans, the first necessary step in which was to adopt 
this resolution of Wallace. * In the '• Outline History,'' pub- 
lished in Collins, McClung says of Colonel Marshall, that 
" his opposition to independence, contrary to law, was 
early, decided and uncompromising." In Littell no pre- 
tense was made, that Colonel Marshall had ever for a 
moment countenanced sucli a proposition, though the men 
who procured that publication were anxious to slur and to 
convict him of inconsistency. Flatly contradicted by 
Greenup, opposed by the statemejit of liis own friend and 
leader, Wilkinson, refuted by Muter, repelled by Crockett, 
disputed by the recollections of every other contemporary 
witness, and utterly inconsistent and irreconcilable as the 
statement of Wallace is with every public act and utter- 
ance of Colonel Marshall, the accuracy of his alleged 
" recollection " of the private conversation of a dead, man, 

* In his letter to Miro, July 12, 1789, [Gayarre, page 225], Wilkinson 
asserted, that, when he sought to " prepare the ground for the seed to 
be deposited in it," by giving "an equivocal shape to his designs," he 
" found all the men belonging to the first class of society in the district, 
with the exception of Colonel Marshall, our surveyor, and Colonel Muter, 
one of our judges,, decidedly in favor of separatioia from the United 
States and of an alliance with Spain." While this gross exaggeration 
did much injustice to many excellent and jiatriotic citizens, there can be 
no sort of question that very many of the prominent men in the state did 
favor that movement. And without detracting from the merit, influence 
or importance of any of the men who stood by and abreast of them in their 
efforts to defeat it, it is sufficient to say that not one of them was more 
active or zealous than either Muter or Marshall. In his rage against 
" those two men " Wilkinson pretended to Miro, that " at first," they 
" expressed the same opinion with warmth," and had changed "from 
private motives of interest and personal pique ; " that he " foresaw they 
would avail themselves of the opposition of some literary demagogues, 
who were under the influence of fear and prejudice." '^ Neverthelesi<," 
he wrote, " I determined to lay the question before the convention, and 
I took the necessary measures accordingly. I was thus engaged until the 
28ih of July, on which day our convention met at Danville." The explicit 
statement that the hostility of Marshall and Muter commenced before 
the Jidy convention was true. The statement that they had at first coun- 
tenanced his views, and had turned against them from personal motives, 
was but the expression of spleen which the baffled conspirator always 
vents upon the men who thwart him, and to cover his own mortification 
at the disappointment of the hopes he had aroused in Miro, by repre- 
senting the unanimity of the leading men in the plot. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 197 

twenty-four years after he asserted it to have taken place, 
may safely be challenged. 

The resolution of Wilkinson and Wallace was defeated. 
A proposition was then made, that each militia captain 
should take the sense of his company upon- the course to 
be pursued, and that the public action should be controlled 
by their decision. This also was defeated by the argu- 
ments of those who were opposed to an illegal separation, 
among the ablest and most conspicuous of whom were 
Colonel John Edwards and Judge John Allen. In a 
measure overawed by this determined opposition, the Wil- 
kinson party iinally succeeded in passing through the con- 
vention, which had no legal power whatever, a recommen- 
dation that the people should elect members to another 
convention to be held at Danville in the following Novem- 
ber, and to continue in power until January 1, 1790 ; and 
that the people should delegate to their representatives in 
this convention "full powers to take such measures for the 
admission of the district, as a separate and independent 
member of the United States of America ; and the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi, as may appear most conducive to 
those purposes ; and also to fonn a constitution of govern- 
ment for the district and organize the same, vdien they shall 
DEEM NECESSARY ; or to do and accomplish whatsoever, on a 
consideration of the state of the district, may, in their 
judgment, promote its interests^ The powers the people 
were invited to commit to the convention were, indeed, as 
stated by Butler, all those ever wielded by a dictator — 
powers inconsistent with constitutional and organized gov- 
ernments. 

The resolution of recommendation embraced a variety 
of topics. One was an application for admission into the 
Union. But those who framed the resolution knew that 
Kentucky coming in this way, without the consent of 
Virginia previously obtained, could not, without an in- 
fraction of the Articles of the Confederation and of the 
constitution, be received either into that Confederation or 
into the new Union ; and it is thus evident that the 
question of applying for admission into the Union was 



198 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

combined with tile others solely because without it the 
others could not be carried. Another was the navigation 
of the Mississij^pi. But the authors and contrivers of the 
resolution knew that Spain alone controlled that question, 
and they knew also the price demanded by Spain for her 
favors. They were aware that Congress had not been able 
to obtain, and could not then obtain that navigation for 
the people of the district, while those people could not 
obtain it for themselves in any other way than by separa- 
tion from the Union. Finally, the recommendation in- 
cluded any thing and every thing which the representa- 
tives elected to the coming convention might deem calcu- 
lated to " promote the interests of the district^'" the first and 
greatest of which interests these men had declared to be 
the navigation of the Mississippi, which the authors and 
advocates of the resolution were apprized could be ob- 
tained from Spain on certain conditions^ which had been 
agreed upon between "Wilkinson and Miro. 

The debate which ensued upon this recommendation 
elicited expressions from, and developed views on the part 
of its advocates, which excited a just alarm among those 
to whom the intrigues with the Spaniard had not been re- 
vealed save by the vague inuendoes of Wilkinson. The 
publication of the resolutions passed by the convention 
did not allay or dissipate the well grounded apprehension 
of those who heard the debate, but increased it and spread 
it among law-abiding people. The public declarations 
for an alliance with Spain had not been explicit. But 
enough had been let fall by covert hints and insinuations, 
when associated with actions in this convention, to explain 
to some the mystery of Wilkinson's transactions at New 
Orleans and the consideration for which he enjoyed ex- 
clusive commercial privileges. Unable to defeat the 
recommendatory resolution in the convention, its oppo- 
nents determined upon a vigorous opposition to the meas- 
ures it foreshadowed, to be made through the press and 
upon the rostrum. 

Among the resolutions passed by the July convention 
was one directing its president, upon the return of John 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 199 

Brown to the district, to wait upon him, " and, in the 
most respectful terms express to him the obligations which 
this convention and their constituents are under to him 
for his faithful attention to their interests in Congress." 
This formal and courteous expression of thanks had been 
well earned by John Brown's services in Congress, which 
had really been at once attentive and faithful. It had no 
reference to his conduct with Gardoqui, which was not known 
to any member of the convention except as only partially 
declared in the " sliding letter," the contents of which 
were known only to McDowell, whose testimony shows 
that he misunderstood the character of. the proposition ; 
and to Innes, who, by the aid of the light cast upon it by 
his previous knowledge of Wilkinson's arrangement with 
Miro, understood it correctly ; and to others to whom its 
contents were communicated by Innes. For this resolu- 
tion of thanks which he had earned, the men who had, 
when they were informed thereof and understood its 
nature, the most severe and just appreciation of the tur- 
pitude involved in John Brown's conduct with Gardoqui, 
might have voted in good faith, without inconsistency, 
without rendering themselves justly amenable to the in- 
sinuation that when the vote was given they approved of 
that conduct, and were stultified by their subsequent con- 
demnation thereof. The weakness of a bad cause was 
never more conspicuously manifested than by the attempts 
made in the Littell pamphlet, in the libel suit of Innes v. 
Marshall, and in the " Political Beginnings," to smirch 
those who knew of John Brown's " sliding letter," (which 
only partially recorded the Gardoqui overture) and yet 
voted an empty resolution of thanks to him for faithful 
services which had no relation to that overture, as if by 
that vote they had participated in Brown's ofl'ense, and 
were estopped from its condemnation. But were this ar- 
gument as forcible as it is flimsy, still no shelter for 
Brown can be had in the alleged inconsistency of others. 
It has been seen that McDowell efl'ectually exploded that 
weak defense; if the " sliding letter" was known to any 
one in the convention besides Innes and himself, it was 



200 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

communicated to ,tliem by Innes, who had a motive for 
making known what McDowell treated as " confidential." 
As the same sophistry is introduced by Colonel Brown 
even less regard is shown for the facts. He says : " The 
letter from Broion to 31uter w^as known to Marshall and 
Edwards," when this resolution of thanks was passed ; 
and he alleges, that " McDowell had its duplicate," — 
wdiich the reader knows McDowell did not have. Colonel 
Brown continues: '^ " The estimate of those who knew of 
that letter [it does not certainly appear whether Colonel 
Brown referred to the Muter or to the McDowell letter, 
but, as he says that one was " duplicate " of the other, 
it does not matter], and its contents, and of the interview 
with Gardoqui was expressed in a resolution [the resolu- 
tion of thanks to Brown] for which Muter and Marshall 
voted along with the other delegates." The official report 
of the proceedings does not state who voted for the reso- 
lutions; nor does it show who were the members of the 
convention ; it gives the names of the president, McDow- 
ell, of the secretary, Todd, and of the chairman of the 
committee . of the whole, Isaac Shelby, only. Its state- 
ment that the resolutions were "unanimously" carried 
does not indicate that every man in the convention voted 
for them, but only that no negative vote was cast or re- 
corded. Colonel Brown had no authority whatever that 
either Muter or Marshall voted for that resolution. In 
his letter published in the Lezington Gazette in 1790, which 
was republished in 1806, and an extract from which, in- 
cluding this statement, was copied into the '■'■Narrative " 
by Littell, Muter asserted that he loas not a member of the 



* Here Colonel Brown imitated the exploit of his grandfather. When 
the latter wished to conceal the real nature of the proposition of Gar- 
doqui, and the character of the letter he wrote to Muter, he suppressed 
that letter, published McDowell's account of the " sliding letter," and 
pretended that the " letter to Muter gave the same account that the 
letter of McDowell did. The grandson, wishing to make as bad a case 
as possible for all who knew of the " sliding letter," and yet voted to 
thank .John Brown for his services in Congress, publishes the letter to 
Muter, in a mutilated form, suppresses the McDowell letter, and says 
that tlie latter was the " dtipJicate " of the former. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 201 

July convention of 1788. In his letter of August 20, 
1806, whicli accompanied the reproduction of the one just 
mentioned, and which was published in the Western 
World and in the Lexington Gazette, he reasserted : " I was 
a member of the convention of I^ovember, 1788, though 
not of July, 1788." This is fully confirmed by Humphrey 
Marshall in his History. If the list of the members of 
that convention published by Collins was relied upon by 
Colonel Brown, it also proved to him that Muter was not 
a member. The writings of Colonel Brown exhibit his 
familiarity with all the records and publications which 
give emphatic and explicit contradiction to his own state- 
ments. He had no ground for rejecting their statements, nor 
any authority whatever for his own. And Muter asserted 
just as positivel}^ that '' 31r. Brown's letter to me came to hand 
in the fall of 1788." The address of Muter to the people, 
which shortly followed the receipt of that letter, was 
dated October 16, 1788. Muter not having been a mem- 
ber of the July convention could not possibly have voted 
for the resolution. And a letter which was not received 
until the fall of 1788 could not have been known to Muter, 
Edwards or Marshall in the preceding July. The neces- 
sity for constituting Muter a member of the convention, 
and of placing in his hands a letter in July which he did 
not receive until more than a month later, was in order to 
give color to Colonel Brown's statement, that when, as he 
alleges. Colonel Marshall voted to thank Brown for his 
services in Congress, he knew of Brown's letter to Muter. 
It adds another example to many others, of Colonel 
Brown's extraordinary fecundity of inaccuracy. 

It must have seemed very doubtful, to say the least, to 
Colonel Brown himself, whether his statement that Colonel 
Marshall was a member of that convention was any more 
true than was his assertion that Muter was a member, 
which is contradicted by all the records with which he was 
familiar. It is true that Colonel Marshall's name is given 
as a member in the inaccurate list published by Collins. But 
as that list showed him the untruth of his own statement 
that Muter was a member, the error of Collins will scarcely 



202 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

serve as a screen for Colonel Brown. Collins also gave 
the name of John Brown, who was in Congress in New 
York, in the list of th« members from Mercer. He did 
not obtain his statement from the official report of the 
convention, for the name of Marshall nowhere appears 
thereon. He w^as not misled by the deposition of Wallace, 
for he could not remember whether Colonel Marshall was 
or was not a member of the July convention. And he 
knew that Humphrey Marshall, who had personal knowl- 
edge and accurate recollection of the fact, liad stated, in 
his History, that neither Muter nor 3Iarshall were mem- 
bers of that convention. [Vol. I, page 298, edition of 
1824.] The fact is that Colonel Marshall was no more a 
member of that convention tlian was Muter. There were 
but five members from Fayette, and those were James 
Wilkinson, Caleb Wallace, John Allen, and William 
Ward, whose names are given by Collins correctly, and 
Dr. Ebenezer Brooks, who w^as one of the " literary dema- 
gogues,'' whom Wilkinson complained of Colonel Marshall 
for having employed to defeat his project. It was Dr. 
Brooks who wrote over the signature of " Cornplanter." 
The fact that he was a member distinctly appears in the 
controversies of 1788 and of 1806. All the scenes pict- 
ured by Colonel Brown of Marshall and Muter as mem- 
bers of the July convention, and voting as such for meas- 
sures which within a few weeks they publicly opposed 
and denounced, is merely an average specimen of Colonel 
Brown's wonderfully inventive genius. 

Of a like nature with his statement in regard to their 
alleged vote for the empty resolution of thanks, is Colonel 
Brown's assertion that Muter, Marshall and Edwards were 
among the members acquiescing in the vote by which the 
recommendatory resolution w^as passed. It is not true 
that Colonel Marshall or Muter were members of the con- 
vention. And if the patriotic Colonel John Edwards sat 
silent while a resolution was passed which he had already 
resisted and was then powerless to defeat, it would no 
more indicate that he had acquiesced therein, or that he 
concurred in its policy, than that John Brown's " holding 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 203 

his peace" when Dane's substitute was passed by Con- 
gress proved that he acquiesced therein or concurred in 
the postponement of the apphcation he had presented. 
Not only is this entire line of aro;ument utterly flimsy and 
fallacious, but the allegations made to sustain it are shown 
to be invariably untrue. Its sole importance is as an 
illustration of the methods employed in John Brown's 
defense.* 



* Col. Marshall, though not a member, was a spectator of the July 
Convention. Humphrey Marshall had been elected a member of the 
Assembly of 1788, as well as a member of the Virginia Convention of 
the same year which adopted the Constitution ; — which was a sufficient 
reason why the elder Marshall was not at the same time a candidate for 
the July Convention. He was represented in the latter, however, by 
Dr. Brooks, who was the tutor of his children. 



204 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

The Canvass Preceding the November Election of 1788 — Tone op the 
Press — Misrepresentations of the Motive of Congress — Efforts 
TO Inflame the People — Muter Eeceives John Brown's Letter — 
Exhibits it to Colonel Thomas Marshall — Advice of the Latter 
— Muter's Address — Muter, Crockett, Allen, Marshall and 
Wilkinson Elected — Colonel Brown's Misstatements Concerning 
Muter and Marshall — Wallace in and after the Canvass — Let- 
ters of Ebenezer Brooks — Wilkinson Describes Brown to Miro — 
Brown Discloses Gardoqui's Overture to Wilkinson and Greenup. 

Immediately upon the publication of the action of the 
July convention, in the Lexington Gazette, the alarm 
which was created found an utterance through the col- 
umns of that paper, sufficiently articulate to indicate the 
nature and depth of the apprehensions felt by the more 
reflecting. Before that convention, as stated by Wilkin- 
son in his letter to Miro, of February 12, 1789, " the ques- 
tion of separation from the United States, although dis- 
cussed with vehemence among the most distinguished inhabit- 
ants of this section of the country, had never been mentioned, 
in a formal manner, to the people at large." It has been 
seen that an effort was made in that convention to sepa- 
rate from Virginia, and to assume independence and sov- 
ereignty without an act for the purpose, and without the 
assent of Congress, which, to the extent it could have 
been made effective, would have separated Kentucky from 
the United States. Wilkinson correctly represented the 
real and intended effect, though not the precise terms, of 
what was proposed and urged in that convention when he 
wrote to Miro, in the same letter to which reference has 
been made, that the "Honorable Caleb Wallace, one of 
our Supreme Judges, the Attorney General Inues, and 
Benjamin Sebastian proposed a 'prompt separation from, the 
Union, and advocated with intrepidity the necessity of the 



The Spanish CoJisjnracy. 205 

movement." That the purpose of the proposition was that 
of disunion, as was directly charged upon the leaders of 
the Wilkinson party from the rostrum, this and other 
letters of the leader of that party, clearly establish. The 
plan was not, however, distinctly developed and avowed 
in their communication to the people, by these projectors 
of the scheme of disunion and a negotiation with Spain, 
who feared the people might not yet be ready for its adop- 
tion. The question of a separation from the Union, and a 
Spanish alliance was still kept in the background. But a 
rejection of the advice of Congress, a violent separation 
from Virginia, (by which is intended a revolutionary sep- 
aration), the framing of a constitution, the organization 
of government, the assumption of independence and sov- 
ereignty, without again applying to the General Assembly 
for its sanction, and without the assent of Congress, was 
the purpose openly declared and boldly advocated. The 
annunciation of this purpose was accompanied by such 
denunciations of Congress as the oppresser of western in- 
terests, by such heated charges that Congress was insincere 
in its cordial expressions of a desire that Kentucky should 
become a state of the Union, and by such angry insistence 
that the opposition to her admission as such would be con- 
tinued under the new government, as precluded the idea, 
that the men who made these arguments aud uttered these 
denunciations contemplated an irregular separation from 
Virginia and the assumption of statehood only as a means 
of hastening the admission of Kentucky into the Union 
by a Congress which they declared was hostile to that ad- 
mission. Their embarrassment proceeded from their un- 
certainty of the people. The recommendatory resolution 
passed by the July convention, and under which that of 
November was called, urged the people, by virtue of some 
kind of inherent sovereign power residing in themselves, 
and not derived from Assemblies or Congresses, to dele- 
gate to the representatives whom they might elect to the 
coming convention, the most plenary and all embracing 
power " to do and accomplish whatsoever, on a consideration of 
the state of the district, may in their opinion promote its interests." 



206 The Sj)anish. Conspiracy. 

There can be no question that the power the people were 
thus asked to delegate, included, and was designed to in- 
clude, that of separation from the United States. If the 
people could only be persuaded to take this step with suffi- 
cient unanimity, the election of delegates to the convention 
would impliedly carry with it the delegation of the power 
requested. In shaping its action, the November conven- 
tion would then be governed by circumstances. If the 
public pulse indicated that it could be done safely, their 
formal declaration of sovereignty would be accompanied 
by an equally formal and explicit withdrawal froni the 
Union, and that would be followed by the appointment of 
a " proper person to negotiate with Spain for the exporta- 
tion of their produce on the Mississippi;" — this would de- 
pend on the success of the inflammatory denunciations of 
the " sinister purposes " of Congress, in working up the 
people to a white heat. But, if the patient, conservative, 
law abiding and liberty loving people insisted on yet an- 
other application to Congress, then, if the way was clear, 
they would, by previously wrenching the district violently 
apart from Virginia, so complicate that application that 
the Congress of the confederation, which had already ex- 
plicitly and unanswerably stated its want of power in the 
premises, could not grant the application without a more 
gross violation of faith and duty. In the meantime the 
constitution would be framed, the government would be 
organized, the separation from Virginia would be con- 
summated, Kentucky would be declared independent and 
sovereign, regardless of Virginia's laws, of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, which had then been adopted, 
of allegiance to the State of Virginia, or to the Union. 
In this condition of insurrection, the anticipated and cer- ■ 
tain rejection of the application by the Congress of the 
new government would find her people. This fresh refusal 
by Congress to receive the new state thus constituted into 
the Union, together with the failure by that body to pro- 
cure for her people the freedom of the navigation of the 
Mississippi below the boundaries of the United States, 
which was not within the control of Congress, and every 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 207 

murder by an Indian, as well as every honest effort by 
Congress to secure peace by protecting the Indian lands 
against seizure by the whites, wonld be used to exasperate 
the hitherto patient, but warlike Kentuckians, until, as 
the conspirators hoped, they would be ready to take the 
plunge into the wide open arms of the Spaniard ! For 
this fatal leap, the embarrassments surrounding the organ- 
ization of the new government, the want of an army, of 
money and of credit, combined to make all things seem 
propitious. If it be said that this is a prejudiced or a par- 
tisan picture, it must still be admitted to be an accurate 
reproduction of that distinctly limned upon the canvas, 
in ineffaceable and damning colors, in his letters to Miro, 
by the master hand of Wilkinson, the leader of the move- 
ment, around whom, as if in deference to his more fertile 
resources, to his superior talents, and greater courage, the 
others revolved as humble and admiring satellites. And 
Butler, who wrote for the conspirators an apology, which, 
however feeble it may have been, was still the best that 
could be offered, could draw no other conclusion from the 
letter of John Brown to Muter, than that " Mr. Brown, 
and in all probability many other of the ancient statesmen 
of Kentucky, did incline to discuss, if not to adopt, a con- 
nection with Spain, independent of the feeble and dis- 
graced Union which then existed." Without detracting 
in the least from the historic value and frankness of this 
admission, their obsequious apologist might well have 
added, that these same " ancient statesmen " had done 
much to " disgrace " that Union, which they nevertheless 
preferred, because of its feebleness, to the stronger and 
" more perfect Union " which had then been established, and 
to which they were hostile because of its anticipated 
strength. 

The removal of Judge Muter from Danville had relieved 
him for the time being from the evil influence which John 
Brown, Innes and others had exerted, and under which he 
had signed the circular of March 29, 1787. He had in the 
meantime gone back to constitutional ground. Locating 
in what is now Woodford, but was then Fayette county. 



208 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

he had become a' neighbor of Colonel Thomas Marshall, 
with whom he had maintained a friendship of long stand- 
ing, which liad been formed in Virginia before the Revo- 
lution ; which had been continued during that struggle, in 
which Muter liad been for a time a Colonel of Infantry in 
the State Line, and afterwards commissioner of the Vir- 
ginia war office; and ^\■llich was renewed after both had 
i-emoved to Kentucky, where Marshall was surveyor of 
Fayette county, and Muter had become Chief Justice of 
the District Court. Muter being a bachelor, was fre- 
quently the guest of his friend, almost an inmate of his 
family. 

As stated by himself in the letter published in 1790, Muter 
knew that at least a part of the letter written by John Brown 
to McDowell had been read in the Danville convention of 
July, 1788, though the part read was not the " sliding let- 
ter " referring to the Gardoqui proposition. As also stated 
by him, he knew that John Brown had written other let- 
ters to other persons in the district, which were received 
before and after the July convention, and which were 
similar to the one he himself afterwards received ; — which 
urged Kentucky to assume independence and sovereignty, 
and as a motive for that precipitate step revealed the over- 
ture which Gardoqui had artfully made. When he re- 
ceived the letter from John Brown addressed to himself, 
which it appears from his own letter referred to, was not 
until the fall of 1788, and thus had the scheme placed cir- 
cumstantially and plainly before his very eyes ; — the ami- 
able Muter could not but associate the statements made 
and advice given and the Spanish overture revealed 
by John Brown, with the covert inuendoes which had 
been so frequently let fall by Wilkinson ; with the actions 
of the latter and of his coterie in the July convention ; 
with their agitations among the people for an immediate 
separation from Virginia and the prompt organization of 
an independent state, without a law for that purpose ; and 
with the exclusive privilege of trade which had been 
granted by the Spaniard to Wilkinson. Whatever had 
seemed mysterious and equivocal in all these circum- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 209 

stances, actions and hints, were explained by the letter of 
John Brown on which the pained eyes of Muter now rested. 

The old Scotchman had an abundance of mere physical 
courage ; but he had always lacked, and continued to lack, 
firmness; he was wanting in self assertion, unstable and 
irresolute. He seems to have been at bottom honest, true 
hearted and averse to intrigue ; — yet he had always been a 
man easily seduced by the stronger natures around him, 
and in later years permitted his love of ease, his fear of 
losing a position necessary to his support, and his reluct- 
ance to wound even by adhering to the truth, to induce 
him to stultify himself by equivocation and by going 
squarely back on his own previous honest declarations. 
The first sentiment of this kindly, well disposed and at 
heart patriotic man, on reading John Brown's letter, was 
one of revulsion and reprehension. It may well be con- 
ceived that his next was one of mortification and self con- 
demnation, that in his past association with Brown and 
Innes there had been aught to make Brown suppose he 
could be made an accessory in a business like that indi- 
cated by Brown's letter. Then came a patriotic and manly 
resolve, of which the most amiable and the weakest natures 
that are naturally honest are frequently capable, to do the 
part of a true man in counteracting the scheme which 
had been disclosed to his view. He knew, as he himself 
stated, as every one else knew, — as Caleb Wallace especi- 
ally very well knew, — that Colonel Marshall had been 
immovably opposed to an illegal separation from Virginia,, 
to a withdrawal from the Union, and to all the plans de- 
veloped in the July convention. Led by a desire to thwart 
the scheme of disunion revealed in Brown's letter, and in- 
stinctively recognizing in his neighbor a more steadfast, 
a bolder, a stronger and more aggressive nature than his 
own, united to a clear judgment and prompt decision, — a 
man on whose unyielding courage he could rely and in 
whose tried patriotism he could confide, he exhibited the 
letter of Brown to Colonel Marshall. 

To the healthy mind of the latter, Brown, in disclosing 
such a matter to Muter, could not place it under the seal 
14 



210 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

of confidence. Besides, Brown, who had written to 
Muter and to others, " with the permission of the Spanish 
minister," " not doubting but that they would make a 
prudent use of the information," had, by this distinct in- 
timation conveyed to Muter his wish that the latter, whom 
he supposed would be favorable to the project, would com- 
municate it to those whom he found to be equally favorable. 
The mistake Brown had made as to Muter was his mis- 
fortune and no fault of Muter, who, in the view of Mar- 
shall, had as much right to use, and was in duty bound to 
use to defeat and thwart, the information Brown had com- 
municated as a means of forwarding, the project. As the 
most effectual means of baffling the objects of the writer 
of that letter. Colonel Marshall, therefore, urged its im- 
mediate publication, with comments explanatory of its 
character, for the purpose of enabling the people to pene- 
trate the meaning of the clamor in the late convention 
for the immediate framing of a constitution and the as- 
sumption of independence, which the letter of Brown 
also contemplated and urged, as the first step necessary to 
the consummation of the arrangements " he had discussed 
with" Gardoqui. With a dift'erent view of his obliga- 
tions, to say nothing of his reluctance to engage in con- 
troversy, the amiable and cautious Muter would not assent 
to the publication ; but he did cheerfully and promptly 
consent to unite with Colonel Marshall in a determined 
effort to counteract and defeat the clandestine designs 
they both now plainly discerned. Neither had been a 
member of the July convention,* but both determined to 
become candidates for seats in that called for !N"ovember, 
" and both took much pains to inform the people of the 
danger and unconstitutionality of the course to which they 
had been advised by the late convention." Associated with 
them on the ticket and equall}^ decided and energetic 
were John Allen (afterwards of Bourbon,) and Ebenezer 
Brooks, both of whom had been members of the July con- 
vention, and had helped to thwart the plan then urged by 



* Marshall, Vol. I, page 298, edition of 1824. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 211 

Wilkinson, Wallace, Innes and Sebastian, They brought 
to their aid the influence and popularity of Joseph Crock- 
ett, who was the fifth on their ticket; — a man who had 
borne the brunt in the very " fore front " of battle in the 
revolution, and who was not now found wanting when 
domestic treason had to be confronted. The four soldiers 
and the pedagogue * announced themselves for another 
application to Virginia, for separation, but only by legal 
and temperate measures. Wilkinson and Wallace advo- 
cated the same rash and precipitate course which they had 
urged in the July convention. The public debates were 
most animated. While Muter would not publish Brown's 
letter, he spoke of it to others besides Colonel Marshall, 
and among others with whom it was discussed were un- 
doubtedly Edwards, Crockett, Allen and Brooks. And 
under date of October 15, 1788, there was published in 
the Lexington Gazette, the following address, which was 
signed by Muter, and which had previously received the 
approval of Colonel Marshall, with whom it had been 
concerted, and to whom it was attributed by contempo- 
rary opinion, viz : 

" Forming a constitution of government, and organizing the same, be- 
fore the consent of the legislature of Virginia for that purpose first ob- 
tained, will be directly contrary to the letter and spirit of the act of 
assembly, entitled ' an act for punishing certain offenses ; and vesting 
the governor with certain powers ; ' which declares that every person or 
persons who shall erect or establish government separate from, or inde- 
pendent of the State of Virginia within the limits thereof, unless by act 
of the legislature for that purpose first obtained ; or shall exercise any 
office under such usurped government, shall be guilty of high treason. 

The third section of the fourth article of the federal constitution ex- 
pressly declares : ' that no new state shall be formed, or erected within 
the jurisdiction of any other state ; nor any state be formed out of the 
junction of two, or more states without the consent of the legislature of 
the states concerned, as well as of the Congress.' Therefore the con- 
sent of Virginia to the separation must first be obtained agreeably to 
the above-cited section, to afford to Kentucky any prospect of being ad- 
mitted a member of the Federal Union. 

In the tenth section of the first article of the federal constitution it 
is declared : ' that no state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con- 



*Ebenezer Brooks was the private tutor of Colonel Marshall's younger 
children. 



212 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

federation.' Of coui'se it must follow that no part of a state can enter 
into any treaty, alliance, or confederation. 

The resolution of the late convention if adopted by the people, might 
fairly be construed, to give authority to the next to treat with Spain, to 
obtain the navigation of the Mississippi if they should think such a 
measure conducive to their interest when it might plainl}' appear by 
the before-recited section, that any other application than to the as- 
sembly of Virginia, and to the Congress of the United States, must be 
contrary to the federal constitution. 

It is therefore submitted to the consideration of the inhabitants of 
Fayette, whether it may not be necessary in their instructions to their 
delegates, to direct them not to agree to forming a constitution and form 
of government and organizing the same, till the consent of the legisla- 
ture of Virginia, for that purpose, is first obtained, not to agree to make 
any application whatever to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi, 
other than to the legislature of Virginia, and the Congress of the 
United States, to draw up and forward to the assembly of Virginia, a 
memorial requesting them to alter their acts for the separation of this 
district from Virginia, that the same be brought before the Congress of 
the United States, in the manner directed by the federal constitution, 
and to request them to authorize the convention by law, to form a con- 
stitution of government, and to organize the same ; or direct a new con- 
vention to be chosen, to continue in office a reasonable time, and to be 
vested with those powers. 

To forward to the assembly of Virginia, and the Congress of the 
United States (if they judge proper and necessary) a decent and manly 
memorial requesting that such measures may be pursued by Congress, 
or that Virginia, will use her influence with Congress to take such 
measures as shall be most likely to procure for the people of the western 
country, the navigation of the Mississippi. 

George Muter." 

This statement of law and facts was not honored with a 
place in the " Political Beginnings," but, instead, was dis- 
missed by the talented author as " the quarter sessions law 
argument." But, while not deigning to place it before 
his readers, that they might form their own estimate of its 
value. Colonel Brown did not deem it beneath the dignity 
of his pages to embrace the occasion afforded by its con- 
temptuous mention to repeat his misstatement of facts in 
order to convict Muter and Marshall of inconsistency. 
Thus : " It does not appear what caused this change of 
opinion, and induced such strong opposition to the identi- 
cal measures that had commanded their [Muter and Mar- 
shall's] support and oote in the convention of the preceding 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 213 

July ;" * — which the letters of Muter himself, as well as 
every other record, show to be absolutely untrue as ap- 
phecl to him, not only as to his having given the vote 
stated, but as to his having been a mem]jer of the conven- 
tion at all. And which is shown by the sworn testimony 
of Greenup, which Colonel Brown read and which he 
suppressed, as v/ell as by the written statement of Crockett, 
to be equally untrue as to Marshall having given the vote 
in question ; and by the statement of Humphrey Marshall, 
as well as by the fact that Wilkinson, Wallace, Ward, 
Allen and Brooks were the jive members of the July con- 
vention from Fayette, to be as absolutely untrue as to 
Marshall having been a member of that convention. The 
pages of the Littell pamphlet, the entire record of the 
controversy which raged in 1806, will be searched in vain 
for an authority for this misstatement, which originated 
with, and all the honor and glory of which belongs exclu- 
sively to, the author of" The Political Beginnings." 

Having thus misstated the facts concerning the votes 
of Muter and Marshall in a convention of which neither 
was a member, it is rather a matter of surprise that Col- 
onel Brown hesitated to charge openly what he insinuates, 
that in their subsequent opposition, in the canvass preced- 
ing the November convention, to the plans of Wilkinson, 
Wallace, Innes, and Brown, they were both influenced by 
a proposition which the author alleges they had received 
from Connolly, a British agent, before Muter's address was 
issued. Says Colonel Brown : 

" It seems passing strange that the quarter sessions law argument 
made by Muter in the letter he published about the time of Connolly's 
visit to himself and Marshall, and which went forth to affect the con- 
vention of November, could have induced the convention to defer a 
step so critically important. And it is equally strange that Muter and 
Marshall, fully informed as they professed to be of the danger from 
Spanish influence, and themselves having conferred with the British agent, 
should have put forth so technical an objection to the immediate fram- 
ing of a constitution and application for admission to the Union. [Po- 
litical Beginnings, page 191.] 

It would be superfluous to dwell upon the misleading 
* Political Beginnings, page 193. 



214 The Spanish Cons2')iracy. 

character of the construction here given to the actions of 
Wilkinson and Wallace and their followers in the July 
convention, or to point out that there was no honest pur- 
pose in their advocacy of an " immediate framing of a con- 
stitution," and by a separation from Virginia and the as- 
sumption of sovereignty, without a law to that end, to ob- 
tain the " admission of Kentucky to the Union." The real 
design of all this is seen in the letters of Wilkinson to 
Miro, in the dispatch of Gardoqui, and in the letter of 
Brown. It must be admitted, however, that, if the allega- 
tions of Colonel Brown concerning the conduct of Muter 
and Marshall in that convention, of their sudden change 
after an interview with and a proposition made to them 
by Connolly, were true, then their course would have been 
" passing strange," indeed. In fact, it would have been so 
very, very strange, that the reader would find it ditficult, 
if not impossible, to reconcile that conduct with any as- 
sumption that Muter and Marshall were either honest or 
patriotic men ; and that was precisely the view of their 
alleged conduct which Colonel Brown sought to convey. 
But when it is ascertained that neither Muter nor Mar- 
shall voted as alleged, nor was a member of that conven- 
tion ; that the letter of Brown to Muter was not received 
until the fall ; that neither ever saw Connolly until after 
the November convention; and that all this distinctly ap- 
pears in the evidence which Colonel Brown garbles and 
suppresses; — the reader will cease to wonder at the 
"strangeness" of the alleged inconsistencies of Muter and 
Marshall, and lose himself in admiration for the wonder- 
ful creative and constructive genius and amazing hardi- 
hood of Colonel Brown ! 

The people' to whom it was addressed appear to have 
taken a view of the " quarter sessions law argument" of 
the then Chief Justice of the district widely different from 
that expressed by Colonel Brown. Under the direct influ- 
ence of similar arguments the militia officers of Fayette 
effected a meeting, at which moderate resolutions were 
adopted to tranquillize the public excitement. General 
Wilkinson had been forced to dissemble ; but notwith- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 215 

standing the deceits resorted to, he and his four associates 
on the ticket with him, Caleb Wallace, William Ward^ 
Robert Johnson and Scott, were, on the fourth day of the 
election in the latter days of October, left far behind. 
Finding himself and all his ticket about to be beaten, 
Wilkinson then disclaimed all disorganizing designs, and 
gave public assurances that he would be guided by the 
wishes and instructions of the people ; — though all the time 
he held firmly to his purpose and engagement with the 
Spaniard. Personally popular as he was, these pledges 
enabled him to secure his own election, by a small vote, 
over Ebenezer Brooks ; while his four associates were de- 
feated, and Colonel Marshall, Colonel Crockett, Judge 
Muter and the staunch John Allen, of the opposing ticket, 
were elected.* Unfortunately for his own reputation, the 
necessities of Muter, his helplessness if thrown out of 
office and his consequent cringing eflbrts to conciliate men 
who held his future and means of livelihood in their hands, 
drove him in later years to equivocation and self stultifi- 
cation, when a strict regard for truth and public justice 
demanded from him plain and manly speech. But the 
danger to his country had then apparently passed away, 
and only the reputation of those whom he sought to shield 
were at stake. And, besides, from under all the rubbish 
of his tergiversation enough of truth appeared to prevent 
any one from being deceived. To his praise it must always 
be remembered, that when real danger threatened his 
country he acted a manly and an unselfish part, and that 
to the result of the election referred to, his address and 
active personal exertions greatly contributed. That a man 



* After his defeat, Caleb Wallace continued to insist that the policy 
advocated by Wilkinson and himself in the July convention and during 
the canvass, of an immediate separation from Virginia and assumption 
of independence was right. A letter written by Ebenezer Brooks on the 
25th of October, 1788, and published in the Western World in 1806, says : 
" Judge Wallace, it is said, declares that seven years hence the people 
will be convinced that he and Wilkinson have been in the right." Yet the 
able jurist had forgotten all about this when he testified as to his re- 
markable recollection of an alleged conversation a quarter of a century 
before. 



216 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

so amiable, so cautious, so reluetant to wound, so averse 
to controversy of any kind, was driven by his sense of 
public danger to take a position so decided and aggressive, 
manifests the depth and seriousness of his apprehensions, 
and exhibits the nature he ascribed to the schemes of John 
Brown, as revealed in Brown's letter. 

In other portions of the district there was less agitation 
than there was in Fayette ; the same members wdio sat in 
the July convention were generally chosen to tliat of I^o- 
vember. 

It has been seen, that when John Brown " discussed 
with " Gardoqui the overture of the latter, he " expected " 
the convention of July '' would resolve upon the erection 
of an independent state," as one of the results of his let- 
ters, and that this initiatory step would be taken during 
his absence ; and in anticipation thereof, he told the Span- 
iard, that upon his return home he would " inform " his 
constituents of the Spanish oifer, and " aid'' in securing 
its acceptance. He announced the same purpose to Oliver 
Pollock. But, when he returned to the district in Septem- 
ber, he was disappointed to find Wallace's resolution de- 
feated in the convention, Kentucky still a part of Virginia 
and in the Union, and was confronted by the formidable 
opposition to the whole scheme of an illegal separation, 
and to all the sequela thereto, which had been boldly and 
energetically made by Muter, Marshall, Allen and Crock- 
ett in Fayette, by Edwards in Bourbon, by Anderson in 
Jefferson, and by good and true men in other portions of 
the district. Essentially a man of suppressions, conceal- 
ments and evasions, deliberate, cold blooded and self-seek- 
ing, who kept an eye always on the hands of the public 
clock, — to have thrown himself courageously into the 
breach and, in the face of such determined opposition, to 
have risked all upon the open advocacy of the scheme he 
had privately plotted with Gardoqui and promised to 
'■'■ aiiV would have been to change his own nature. That 
he wrote other letters than those addressed to McDowell 
and Muter is established by Muter's statement of his per- 
sonal kiiowk'dge of such otlier letters. That daring the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 217 

canvass preceding the N'ovember convention, he did all in 
his power to incense the people against Congress, by im- 
peaching the sincerity and good faith of, and attributing 
unfriendly motives to the action of, that body, as he 
had done in those letters, is apparent from the letter of 
Ebenezer Brooks already quoted. * To Christopher 
Greenup he communicated the overture of Gardoqui 
which he had promised to " aid." Greenup being opposed 
to the entire scheme, from its initial point of an illegal 
separation from Virginia to its intended culmination in an 
alliance with Spain, the prudent Brown forbore to advo- 
cate its acceptance to him. f With his intimate and 
leader, General Wilkinson, he was less reserved, as ap- 
pears from a letter of that conspirator to Miro, under date 



* Brooks wrote : " Our member of Congress seems much outof humor 
that he has been so little attended to in the controversy. They seem to 
think Congress sincere notwithstanding all he has written to the con- 
trary." [Letter of Arthur Campbell, dated October 25, 1788 ; published 
in the " Western World " in 1806.] 

t Greenup, who was then governor, had been understood to say that 
when Brown communicated to him the overture of Gardoqui, he com- 
menced to advocate it in a feeble sort of way, but, on finding Greenup 
hostile, desisted. There was more than one person who so understood 
Greenup, who did not expect to be reported, and who denied the state- 
ment as published in the Western World. From his letter, however, it 
appears that Brown did make to him the stated communication, as he 
almost certainly did to all to whom he believed it safe to do so. 
Greenup's letter is as follows, viz : 
To the Editors of the Western World : 

From the conversation I had with you on the evening of the day on 
which the first number of your paper appeared, I did expect, from your 
positive promise, that you would have corrected the erroneous state- 
ment you had inserted in that paper, respecting a conversation (which 
you were not authorized to publish) that passed between you and my- 
self, concerning IMr. Brown and others. Understanding that you are 
not likely to do so, I tliink proper to declare, that I did not in that con- 
versation say that Mr. Brown " in a guarded manner approved " of Gar- 
doqui's proposition, or any words like it. JMr. Brown merely related 
Gardoqui's conversation with him — neither approving nor disapproving 
the same. That I did not say General Wilkinson's memorial contained 
about eighty pages. But I did say, and do now say that I knew nothing 
of the individuals who were to fill the several places of honor under the 
Spanish government in Kentucky, but by the information of the late 
Colonel Marshall. At the time Mr. Wood spoke to me on the above 



218 The Spanish Consjnraci/. 

of February 14, 1789/'' To hiiii lie (Brown) made 
known the proposition of Gardoqui in all its deform- 
ity, as well as his own adherence to the scheme and 
desire that it should be successful ; and Wilkinson dis- 
covered his knowledge of the man in ascribing Brown's 
refusal to openly advocate a scheme to which he was pri- 
vately devoted, to his timidity, and to an apprehension 
that a public disclosure of the proposition would defeat 
rather than further its acceptance. The letter of Wil- 
kinson also makes it clear, that in the mutual confidences 
between Brown and himself he disclosed to the Congress- 
man the arrangement he had effected with Miro ; and the 
subsequent actions of the two friends in the approaching 
convention can best be understood by looking at them 
under the light of those official explanations of the bold 
man whose superior nerve made him the leader. It is in 
the highest degree improbable that John Brown did not 
communicate it to others besides Greenup and Wilkinson; — 



subject I had not seeu the statement of the propositions alleged to have 
been made by Gardoqui to Mr. Brown, and, therefore, could not say 
that his conversation with me corresponded with them. I now say it 
did not. 

Christ. Greenup. 
July 11, 1806. 

* " Don Diego Gardoqui, about the month of March last, received 
from his court ample powers to make with the people of this district 
the arrangements he might think proper, in order to estrange them from 
tJie United States and induce them to form an alliance with Spain. I received 
this information, in the first place, from Mr. Brown, the member of Con- 
gress for this district, who, since the taking into consideration of our 
application to be admitted into the Union has been suspended, entered 
into some free communications on this matter with Don Diego Gardoqui. 
He returned here in September last, and, finding that there had been some 
opposition to our project, he almost abandoned the cause in despair, and 
positively refused to advocate in public the propositions of Don Diego Gardo- 
qui, as he deemed them fatal to our cause. [The writer meant that the pub- 
lic advocacy of those propositions would be fatal to the cause.] Brown 
is one of our deputies or agents ; he is a young man of respectable talents, 
but timid, without political experience, and with very little knowledge of 
the world. Nevertheless, as he firrrdy persevered in his adherence to our iti- 
terests, we have sent him to the new Congress, apparently as our repre- 
sentative, but in reality as a spy on the actions of that body." [Extract 
from Wilkinson's letter to Miro, February 14, 1789. Gayarre, page 241.] 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 219 

in fact, that he did uot acquaint all whom he felt free to 
approach on the subject. But the certainty that he did 
inform these two, one of whom was then the confidential 
agent of Spain in this nefarious design, is the most abun- 
dant evidence that Colonel John Mason Brown's assertions 
that " two persons only in Kentucky were informed," * 
(McDowell and Muter), and that " under the cautious ad- 
vice of Madison the communication of Gardoqui was thus 
kept from the knowledge of all persons in Kentucky save 
McDowell and Muter," are untrue. And, if John Brown 
indeed acted under the " cautious advice of Madison," in 
his alleged mysterious reticence concerning the proposition 
of the Spanish minister, it will occur to the reader as a 
most singular circumstance, that one of the persons to 
whom he confided it was the man to whom Spain had 
granted valuable privileges of trade which she refused to 
concede to the United States, as a consideration by which 
he was to be in part compensated for his services in the 
fulfillment of the engagement he had entered into with 
the Intendant at New Orleans, to further the same schemes 
of disunion which John Brown had promised Gardoqui to 
" aidr 



* Political Beginnings, page 153. 



220 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Brown Elected to November Convention — Official Report of its 
Proceedings— The Efforts of Wilkinson, Brown and Others to 
Separate Immediately from Virginia — That Separation Really 
A Separation from the Union — The Motive to Accept Propositions 
op Miro and Gardoqui — Wilkinson's Speech — John Brown's State- 
ment at the Conventon — Colonel Marshall's Account — John 
Brown's Own Account — Wilkinson's Memorial — John Brown's 
Resolution — Its Purpose — Wilkinson's Explanation to Miro — 
The Purpose op the Suppressed Address to the People as Stated 

BY LiTTELL, 

John Brown arrived in Kentucky in time to participate 
in the canvass, to become a candidate for, and to secure his 
own election to, a seat in the November convention. The 
meager official report of the proceedings of that body, as 
made by Thomas Todd, conveys no adequate conception of 
the issues which were presented, of the sentiments and pur- 
poses by which the opposing parties were animated, nor 
of the heated discussions which ensued. It states that on 
the first day, Mpuday, November 3, 1788, there was no 
quorum. On Tuesday, Samuel McDowell was again chosen 
to preside, and Thomas Todd to officiate as secretary. It 
was then determined that on the next day the convention 
would itself go into a committee of the whole, to consider 
the state of the district. To this committee were referred 
the resolutions of Congress upon the application of the dis- 
trict, which those resolutions had referred to the new gov- 
ernment, that had been established by the ratification of 
the constitution by ten states. On the third day, those 
resolutions and other papers referring to the same subject 
were referred to the committee of the whole, of which 
Wilkinson was elected chairman. After the committee 
had deliberated for some time it rose, but with leave to sit 
again during the day. The convention then referred to 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 221 

the committee the resolutions of the July convention, rec- 
ommending the election of, and giving powers to, this con- 
vention ;" after which the convention again went into the 
committee of the whole, which occupied further time in 
deliberation, and then rose, to sit again from day to day. 
Petitions were then presented from the counties of Mercer 
and of Madison respectively, praying the convention " that 
a spirited and manly address should be sent to Congress, to 
obtain the navigation of the Mississippi," which was also 
referred to the committee. The resolution for preparing 
an address to the Assembly of Virginia was then taken 
up, read, amended and agreed to, as follows, viz : 

" That a committee be appointed to draw up a decent and respectful 
address to the assembly of Virginia, for obtaining the independence of 
Kentucky, agreeable to the late resolution and recommendation of Con- 
gress, and that they prepare and report the same to the convention to- 
morrow." 

The committee appointed consisted of Edwards, Mar- 
shall, Muter, Jouitt, Allen and Wilkinson, the first of 
whom had offered, and the second of whom had seconded, 
the resolution. 

On the fourth day, the resolution reported from the 
committee of the whole upon the petitions from Madison 
and Mercer was recommitted to the committee of the 
whole, into which the convention then resolved itself, and 
of which Innes was elected chairman. After the subject 
had been discussed for some time, the committee reported 
to the convention that the petitions were reasonable, and 
the convention- ordered that a decent and respectful ad- 
dress to Congress be prepared accordingly. The special 
committee appointed for the purpose consisted of Innes, 
Wilkinson, Marshall, Muter, Brown, Sebastian and Mor- 
rison. 

Mr. Edwards, from the committee appointed to draw 
up an address to the assembly of Virginia for obtaining 
the independence of Kentucky, " agreeable to the advice 
of Congress," reported and read the address, and delivered 
it to the clerk, who again read it, when an amendment 
was proposed, and the address and amendment were placed 



222 The Spayiish Conspiracy. 

upon the table. It was then that John Brown, according 
to the official account, ofi*erecl this resolution : 

" Resolved, That it is the wish and interest of the people of this district 
to separate from the State of Virginia, and that the same be erected into 
an independent member of the Federal Union." 

And it was ordered that the resolution " do lie on the 
table." Thus far the official report of Todd, which makes 
no mention of the speech made by Wilkinson, nor in this 
connection of the memorial he read at this time, nor of 
the call upon John Brown for information as to the over- 
ture of Gardoqui, nor of any discussion between the par- 
ties, and conveys not even an intimation that the question 
of the navigation of the Mississippi was before the con- 
vention, except so far as the petitions from Madison and 
Mercer, and the resolution that an address should be sent 
to Congress to obtain it for the district, brought it before 
them ; — which, in fact, conceals nearly all the reader is in- 
terested in knowing. 

The important truth, which that report conceals, is, 
that on the third day, after the convention had resolved 
itself into the committee of the whole, with the resolu- 
tions of Congress and the question whether the advice of 
that body should be followed as the only subjects before 
the committee for consideration ; — there at once ensued a 
discussion as to what powers were possessed by the conven- 
tion, and v)hence those powers were derived. By Muter, 
Marshall, Edwards, Allen and Crockett it was contended, 
that the only power the convention had was the right of 
petition, to apply to the assembly of Virginia for an act 
authorizing the district to form a constitution, and con- 
senting to its independence. By Wilkinson, Brown, 
Innes and Sebastian it was argued, that the convention had 
all the sovereign powers which the recommendatory reso- 
lutions of the July convention had advised the people to 
bestow upon their representatives ; and that those powers 
embraced the forming of a constitution, the declaration of 
independence, the assumption of sovereignty, without an 
application to Virginia, the navigation of the Mississippi, 
and all those sweeping and unlimited powers of doing 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 223 

any thing and every thing which they might deem con- 
ducive to the interests of the district. It was during this 
debate it was discovered, that the resolutions of the July 
convention had not been referred to the committee. A 
motion was therefore made, that the committee rise, in 
order that the reference might be made by the convention 
to the people. To this opposition was made by Muter 
and Marshall and their associates, who held that the 
question of applying to Virginia (which was the sole thing 
the convention had power to do, as they contended,) w^as 
fully before the committee, and should be considered sepa- 
rately from the others. But the Wilkinson coterie were 
determined, that this question should be complicated with 
that of the navigation of the great river. They succeeded 
in having the committee rise, and then in securing the 
reference by the convention of the resolutions of the July 
convention to the committee of the whole. It was certainly 
at some time during the third or fourth day, and most 
probably during the debate on the question of reference, as 
Marshall, McClung and Butler concur in stating, that the 
most memorable utterances of Wilkinson and Brown were 
delivered, glancing at the idea of an illegal separation, as 
a step towards obtaining the na.vigation of the Mississippi, 
and yet doing it in a manner evincing their doubts of the 
sentiments of their auditors, and their apprehensions of 
the consequences of open avowals of their purposes. 

By the master spirit of the intriguants, by Wilkinson, 
who had made with Miro the arrangements disclosed in 
their letters, it was said in the convention, that : 

" Spain had objections to granting the navigation in question to the 
United States ; it was not to be presumed that Congress would obtain 
it for Kentucky, or even the western country — her treaties must be gen- 
eral. There was one way, and but one, that he knew of obviating 
these difficulties, and that was so fortified by constitutions, and guarded 
by laws, that it was dangerous of access, and hopeless of attainment 
under present circumstances. It was the certain but prescribed course 
which had been indicated in the former convention, which he would 
not now repeat ; but which every gentleman present would connect 
with the formation of a constitution, a declaration of independence and 
the organization of a new state ; which, he added, might safely be left 



224 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

to find its way into the Union on terms advantageous to its interests and 
prosperity. * 

Wilkinson continued to dwell upon the value and im- 
portance of the navigation, upon the inability of Congress 
to obtain the privilege of that navigation, and renewed his 
insinuation that Kentucky could obtain it for herself by 
taking the indicated step ; — making exactly the speech 
which a man would naturally make who had formed with 
Miro an engagement to separate Kentucky from the 
Union, and yet who was warned by the expressions of 
those who listened that the ground on which he trod was 
dangerous. In conclusion he stated, that important infor- 
mation on the subject was within the power of the con- 
vention, and he doubted not it would be agreeable to the 
gentleman who possessed it to communicate that informa- 
tion. All eyes were directed upon John Brown, who was 
well understood to be the person to whom Wilkinson had 
referred ; and " a member of the convention then desired 
Mr. Brown to communicate what he knew, f In reply to 
which invitation Mr. Brown, according to the statement 
of Colonel Thomas Marshall, an eye and ear witness, 
given in a letter to General Washington, dated February 
12, 1789, only three months subsequent to the occurrence, 
said : 

" He told us that he did not think himself at liberty to mention what 
had passed in private conversation between himself and Don Gardoqui 
respecting us ; but this much he would venture to inform us, that pro- 
vided we were united in our councils every thing we could wish for was 
within our reach." 



* Marshall, page 318. Butler, copying this from Marshall's History, 
adds his supposition that it was taken from " the notes of Colonel 
Thomas Marshall, whose accuracy in another part of this debate was 
vouched for by Judge Thomas Todd, when summoned before a legisla- 
tive committee in 1806." Whether or not this supposition is correct, it 
is certain that Humphrey Marshall had ample opportunity for ascertain- 
ing the facts accurately, not only from Colonel Thomas Marshall, but 
from Muter, Edwards, Allen, Crockett, Anderson and others. That 
Wilkinson made a speech in reference to this subject, and hinting at the 
terms on which it might be obtained, is certain. That much appears in 
Littell's ''^Narrative.'''' 

t Butler, page 1 77. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 225 

Upon this reply made by John Brown to the request, 
that he would communicate to the convention what he 
knew as to the terms upon which the freedom of the nav- 
igation of the Mississippi might be obtained by the people 
of Kentucky, Colonel Marshall, who had read Brown's 
letter to Muter, and clearly understood the full meaning 
of Brown's hesitating and cautious words, made this natu- 
ral comment : " Meaning, as it fully appeared to me, that 
if we would assume government and declare separate from 
the Union, Spain would give us Qxery indulgence we could 
ask for." 

Having thus admitted his own private conferences with 
Gardoqui, confirmed what Wilkinson had said in regard 
to the information he possessed, and given the convention 
distinctly to understand, that they had only to act with 
unanimity to obtain from Spain all they desired, the cir- 
cumspect Mr. Brown plumped himself down into his seat, 
and at this time not another word did he utter. If Wilk- 
inson, Sebastian, Innes, and Wallace (who was a spectator, 
though not a member of the convention), hoped that he 
would openly advocate in that presence the scheme con- 
cerning which he had promised Gardoqui to " inform " 
his constituents and to " aid " in its accomplishment ; or 
even that he would impart explicit information which 
might be useful in its details, they were, as their looks and 
manner indicated, sorely disappointed. When about to 
take the leap the horse had balked. Whether the oppo- 
sition, that had already been made in the preceding can- 
vass, had made him fear the consequences upon his own 
future of a more explicit declaration had daunted him, 
and had caused him to predetermine.^ this laconic and 
oracular response ; or whether, wdien he rose to make the 
statement his confederates evidently expected from him, 
he was disconcerted by the expression of reprehension 
and of keen scrutiny he detected on the countenances of 
many of his auditors, it is needless to inquire. It is only 
important for the present purpose the reader shall note, 
that this was the plea which John Brown made for unani- 
mity, and that this was " the unanimity which John Brown 
15 



226 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

invoked in the convention of November." * It was not, 
as his grandson most strangely represents, to adopt a con- 
stitution in order that an immediate application might be 
made to Congress to admit Kentucky into the Union ; — for, 
equally in his secret letters and in his commingling vs^ith 
the x^eople, he had represented that Congress to be insin- 
cere, treacherous and hostile. But it was, that they should 
be unanimous in separating from Virginia and from the 
United States, in order to profit by the overture of Gar- 
doqui, the benefits of which, he had himself written, could 
only be obtained by a withdrawal from the United States. 
The man so correctly described by his friend Wilkinson 
to Miro, could not, unless b}' a sudden transformation of 
his own essential nature, when confronted by so many 
looks of scorn and of anger, have made a more explicit 
statement, that if the convention would only erect itself 
into an independent state and separate from the Union, 
Spain was ready to grant to the new state, thus independ- 
ent and separate, every privilege of navigation and com- 
merce her people could desire; — which privilege, he had 
written to Muter, could never be granted so long as they 
remained a part of the United States. 

The dead silence that followed was broken by Wilkin- 
son, who sought to revive the spirits of his adherents by 
reading to the convention the memorial to the Intendant 
of Louisiana, which he had concocted with ISTavarro and 
Miro at New Orleans. It has been seen that the original 
of this memorial had been forwarded to Madrid, where, to- 
gether with the representations of Navarro and Miro, it 
had produced the instructions to Gardoqui, acting under 
which the overture to John Brown was made. The sub- 
stance of that memorial, as read in the convention, was 
stated by Colonel Marshall in his letter to Washington 
(of February 12, 1789), the accuracy of which statement 
was vouched for under oath by Judge Todd, the secretary 
of the convention, and relative and protege of Innes. In 
plain and unequivocal terms, the memorial stated, that 

* Political Beginnings, page 191. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 227 

" the western people were on the point of separating them- 
selves from the Union forever," because of intelligence 
that Congress was about to cede to Spain the navigation 
of the Mississippi for twenty-five or thirty years. It 
threatened Spain, that, in case she refused the use of the 
Mississippi to the western people (thus separated) Great 
Britain stood with arms extended ready to receive them. 
It quoted a conversation the author of the memorial had 
held with a member of the British Parliament to that 
effect. As this memorial was read, the sheets were handed 
to Sebastian, who held possession of them for the author; 
they were not placed on the clerk's table, as was custom- 
ary with public papers. 

To counteract the eflect of these proceedings, the peti- 
tions which had been obtained from citizens of Mercer 
and Madison, praying- that an address might be sent to 
Congress to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi, were 
delivered to Innes, with the request that he would pre- 
sent them; which he did, knowing that the object prayed 
for was not within the power of Congress, and if the con- 
vention voted the address, the certain failure of Congress 
to comply would add to the discontent. These petitions, 
contemplating a constitutional course, met with no oppo- 
sition from the moderate party, and were referred to a 
special committee, who soon reported a preamble and res- 
olution, which was ordered to lie on the table. It was at 
this juncture that the resolution which had been ofiJered 
by Edwards and seconded by Marshall " for appointing a 
committee to draw up a decent and respectful address 
to the people of Virginia, for obtaining the independence 
of the district of Kentucky, agreeable to the late resolu- 
tions and recommendations of Congress," was called up 
and agreed to. This was the decisive action of the con- 
vention, which marked the spirit of loyalty and honor 
which was predominant in the convention, and gave 
warning to the men whose leaders had conspired with 
Miro and "discussed" treason with Gardoqui. The reso- 
lution for the preparation of this address was adopted in 
the moment of honest revulsion from the utterances of 



228 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Wilkinson and Brown. Wilkinson was the only man 
of his party on the oommittec intrusted with its prepara- 
tion, and, though he endeavored by indirect mean^ to de- 
feat the address, he was too astute a politician to propose 
a different one, after having received an intimation so sat- 
isfactory to his ready perception of the loyal feeling of the 
convention. 

On the next day tlie petitions from Mercer and Madison 
were taken up and the special committee was appointed to 
prepare the address to Congress. Mr. Edwards then re- 
ported the address to the Assembly of Virginia; but an 
amendment was oftered for the purpose of delaying, and, 
if possible, of defeating it, and it was postponed for future 
consideration. The object was to make one more effort 
to bring the convention to immediately form a constitu- 
tion, to organize government, to declare the independence 
of the district, and to assume sovereignty, without an act 
of Virginia, which was the first step necessary in the 
schemes of Wilkinson and Brown. The convention was 
immediately asked to come to the resolution introduced 
for this purpose by John Brown. That this was its pur- 
pose was avowed in the Littell pamphlet and is conceded 
in the " Political Beginnings." The resolution was char- 
acteristically tortuous and misleading.* The first part of 
it, which embraced a separation from Virginia, and which 
was to have been immediate and without a law for the pur- 
pose, was the real object which was sought to be accom- 
plished by the resolution ; and it was in consonance with 
Brown's letter to Muter, with his promise to Gardoqui, 
with his laconic statement to the convention, when called 
on for information as to the means by which the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi could be obtained, and with the 



*The following is the text of the official report, viz.: 

"A motion was made by Mr. Brown for the convention to come to tlie 
following resolution, viz.: 

" Resolved, That it is the wish and interest of the good people of the 
district to separate from the State of Virginia, and that the same be 
erected into an independent member of the Federal Union. 

"Ordered, that the said resolution do lie on the table." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 229 

hints that had been given by Wilkinson aa to the one 
thing necessary to be done in order to obtain that naviga- 
tion. The second part, mentioning the "erection of the 
district into an independent member of the Federal 
Union " was ont of the power of the convention itself to 
accomplish ; — while not only was the step suggested by the 
first part prohibited by the laws of Virginia, but the Arti- 
cles of Confederation and the Constitution, which had been 
adopted, equally prohibited Congress from receiving a 
State which had been "erected " in that manner. From 
its very nature this " erection into a member of the Fed- 
eral Union" was to have been future, remote and contin- 
gent, while the action proposed was calculated, as it was 
designed, to defeat that object. It was incorporated in 
the resolution by Mr. Brown, to bridge over its first part 
with those who would have halted if a i)roposition to ille- 
gally separate from A^irginia had been accompanied by an 
open declaration of a separation from the Union. Wil- 
kinson, wliose engagement with Miro has been seen, was 
actuated by the same policy when lie intimated, that the 
independent State to which Spain would grant the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi "might safely be left to find its 
way into the Union,'' at some unknown and indefinite 
time in the future ; though he and Brown Ijoth knew, that 
the condition annexed to the proposed tVivors of Spain was 
a final separation from the Union. 

When the statement of Littell's pamphlet, as to the ob- 
ject which John Brown sought to attain by his resolution, 
is logically connected with Brown's letter to Muter, with 
his promise to Gardoqui, with his mutual confidences 
with Wilkinson, and with the engagement of the latter with 
Miro, which he had made known to Brown, there remains 
no room for doubt, that the above statement of the pur- 
pose of Brown's resolution is just. In Chapter VI of that 
pamphlet it is stated, that when the address to the Assem- 
bly of Virginia was reported by John Edwards, " an 
amendment was proposed, and both that and the address 
were ordered to lie on the table. The reason of this was, 
that some objections liad been made to the substance of 



230 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the address, and several me.nfihers disapproved of the proceed- 
ings in toto" Those " several members " were James Wil- 
kinson, John Brown, Benjamin Sebastian, and Harylnnes, 
and their folloAvers ; and the " proceedings " of which 
" they disapproved in toto,'' was the proposition to apply 
to the Assembly of Virginia for a law to authorize the 
separation, to consent to the erection of the district into 
a state, and to its reception into the Union, as provided in 
such cases by the Constitution. The action of Congress 
in referring the application of Kentucky to the new gov- 
ernment the pamphlet then ascribes " to the malign influ- 
ence of an Eastern politician, whose talents for intrigue 
have become famous throughout the civilized world." 
The pamphlet also states, that "A considerable time must 
elapse before the new Federal Government could come 
into operation, and experience had furnished them with 
no cause to believe that the protection of Kentucky would 
engross its earliest care. On the other hand there was 
much reason to fear that bartering away the navigation of the 
Mississippi would, he one of its first acts."" There was, then, 
no expectation or purpose to make an ^'' immediate applica- 
tion " for admission to the Union, as stated in the " Politi- 
cal Beginnings." Still, under the impression, as the pam- 
phlet alleges, that the bartering away of the navigation 
of the Mississippi would be one of t\\Q first acts of the new 
government, it was the opinion of Wilkinson, who had 
conspired with Miro to separate Kentucky from the Union 
and to subject her people to Spain; of John Brown, who 
had promised Gardoqni to return home and "aid" in pro- 
moting that separation in order to negotiate with Spain, 
and who knew Wilkinson's plans ; of Sebastian, who had 
now become one of Wilkinson's lieutenants, and who was 
afterwards proved to have been a pensioner of Spain ; and 
of Hary Innes, who had written to the governor of Vir- 
ginia that this "Western country will, in a few years, 
Bevolt from the Union and erect itself into an independ- 
ent government," who was one of the first two men in 
Kentucky to whom Wilkinson had fully confided, who 
had read Brown's letter to McDowell, and to whom Brown 



The Spa?iish Conspiracy. 231 

had, beyond peradventure, communicated tlie details of 
his conference with Gardoqui ; — it was the opinion of this 
patriotic quadrilateral, according to tlieir own statement 
in Littell, "that it was the duty of the convention, under 
the powers delegated to them" by the recommendatory 
resolution of the July convention, "to proceed to form a 
constitution ; that measures should be taken to organize 
the district under it ; and as soon as the affairs of the gen- 
eral government would permit, Kentucky should present 
herself in that organized form (as an independent state) 
for admission into the Union, on the conditions contained 
in the compact with Virginia!" According to this state- 
ment, then, the object of the resolution was to immediately 
separate Kentucky from Virginia, and to erect the district 
at once into a state. This state would necessarily have 
been outside of the Union. One of the first acts of that 
Union, the pamphlet states, it was apprehended, would be 
to barter away the navigation of the Mississippi. There 
was no purpose, therefore, to apply at once for admission 
to a Union from which this action was feared. But at 
some future time, to be determined thereafter (and very 
distant that time would have been had Kentucky taken 
the fatal leap to which she was urged, and had her desti- 
nies been controlled by the men who had made such en- 
gagements with the Spaniard), that application might be 
made. In the meantime, however, Kentucky would have 
been out of the Union and free to forin alliances where 
she pleased. 

For these reasons, and under these impressions, Littell 
alleges the resolution of John Brown was offered. And 
after stating other arguments advanced why this resolution 
should be adopted, the author continues : 

"As a further iiKhicement to adopt this resohitiou, it was stated that 
there was a prospect of obtainiu'j from S^iit'in iHniii>i^hin to export the produce 
of the country by the way of Ijn Mi^^^i^.-^ijifii .■ nml i,, rnn:<. 'jnence of wme infor- 
mation which General Willchi.-<oii had (jiiun. auiuc friimh on that mhjecf, the 
general was requested from the chair to state to the convention his 
opinion on this matter." 

Then Littell gives the version of Wilkinson's speech, 
which it was supposed was best calculated to conceal the 



232 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

purposes which the reader knows Wilkinson had. Ilia 
information was derived from Brown and Innes, and, of 
course, the intimation given by Wilkinson of the only 
way in which Kentucky could obtain for herself what 
Congress could not secure, was carefully suppressed; — just 
as Innes suppressed in the same publication the words 
" Revolt from the Union" in his letter to Governor Ran- 
dolph, as Brown suppressed his letter to Muter, as the 
resolution of Wallace in the July convention was sup- 
pressed, and just as these three men had combined to sup- 
press the fact that they had signed the letter which in- 
duced the censure of Clark. The fact is mentioned by 
Littell that Wilkinson read his memorial to the Intcndant 
of Louisiana, and compliments are passed upon its ability 
and style. And then comes this remarkable passage : 

"This communication (the memorial,) brought to recollection infor- 
mation received by the president of the convention on the same subject 
in a letter written by John Brown, while in Congress, after the applica- 
tion of Kentucky to that body had been defeated as hereinbefore men- 
tioned. A motion was then made that the president request Mr. Brown, 
(who was then a member of the convention) to make such communica- 
tion on the subject, as he should think proper. 3fr. Brown then stated in a 
concise 7nanner the substance of what he had loritten to Colonel McDowell. But 
in doing this he merely made a naked statement of the conversation, 
without recommending the adojition of any measure in consequence of 
it, or suggesting a single sentiment of approbation." 

It has been seen, however, that the " prospect of obtain- 
ing from Spain permission to export the produce of the 
country by way of the Mississippi" was "a further in- 
ducement to adopt " Mr. Brown's resolution, which was 
understood to be, and was designed by its author as, a 
step for the realization of that prospect. The reader will 
note the peculiarity of the assertion in the above extract, 
that " Mr. Brown then stated in a concise manner the sub- 
stance of what he had written to Colonel McDowell ;" — which 
omitted the fact that Spain's condition, on which alone she 
would grant that navigation to Kentucky, was that the 
district must Jirst withdraw from the Union. Then, observ- 
ing the pretense in the authorized statement made by Lit- 
tell, that the realization of the " prospect " held out by 
Spain for obtaining that navigation was consistent with a 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 233 

future application for admission to the Union, he will be 
able to fully appreciate the motive John Brown and Hary 
Innes had for suppressing the letter written to Muter, and 
for falsely stating that it gave the same account of the 
proposition of Gardoqui as that given in the letter to Mc- 
Dowell ; and in arriving at this appreciation of the de- 
fense thus offered, he will comprehend the characters of 
the men and the nature of their cause. 

If John Brown had in truth detailed to the convention 
the proposition of Gardoqui as he had stated it to Mc- 
Dowell, leaving the convention to suppose that Spain had 
offered to grant the navigation to Kentucky as a memher 
of the Federal Union, it would have heen but an additional 
evidence of his duplicity and of his perfidy. 

In Chapter X of Littell appears this passage : " But in 
the convention of ISTovember, 178'8, Mr. Brown made a 
public communication of his conference with Gardoqui, 
in the presence of honest simplicity, wary jealousy and 
suspicious duplicity. In the hearing of confidential 
friends and insinuating hypocrites, of open rivals and se- 
cret enemies." And a little further on in the same chapter 
the statement is again repeated that Brown reported to 
the convention his conference with Gardoqui. The reader 
will see from the letter to Muter and from Gardoqui's 
official dispatch, that, in that conference, Gardoqui made a 
distinct proposition to Brown to grant Kentucky the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi on the fundamental condition 
precedent that Kentucky would erect itself into an inde- 
pendent state and separate fi-om the Union; and that 
Brown thanked Gardoqui for making that proposition, 
promised to " aid" in promoting its acceptance, and urged 
in the convention that the initial of measures necessary to 
secure that navigation under that proposition should be 
taken. There is no one so simple as to believe that the men 
who favored a separation from the Union in order to obtain 
that concession from Spain, contemplated the abandon- 
ment of the advantage it would have conferred by a sub- 
sequent application for admission back into the Union ! 

If Brown's own statement through Littell is to be be- 



234 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

lieved, he stated to the convention the overture which 
Gardoqui had made ; though in that presence he did not 
dare to advocate it. He did not claim that he had lisped 
one word in opposition to the proposition of treason which 
he alleged he had then communicated. While men were 
still living who were present and had heard all that was 
said, even he was ashamed to deny that the subject was 
mentioned in the convention, or that he had spoken in ref- 
erence thereto. It seemed to him, that it would have been 
less discreditable to have revealed the whole proposition 
than to have resorted to the vague, equivocal and timid 
course imputed to him in the letter of Colonel Marshall. 
He therefore asserted that he had made a full disclosure to 
the convention ; and the argument was made for him that, 
if his conduct was reprehensible, the people knew it, and 
by twice thereafter electing him to Congress, had partici- 
pated in his guilt ; and, as the people were known to have 
been loyal, his election by them, established his own loy- 
alty ! No claim was then made that he had communicated 
the overture to Madison, and by his advice kept it secret 
from all but Muter and McDowell. From the beginning 
to the end of that pamphlet there is not an intimation 
that he had made a confidant of Madison, nor that he 
maintained secrecy. All that was an afterthought. On the 
contrary the misrepresentation then resorted to was that 
he had made the details of the matter public, that it was 
generally known, and that the people who elected him 
knowing the facts had shared his guilt, and, therefore, he 
was innocent ! 

As will be seen, the convention had already directed an 
address to the Assembly of Virginia, requesting the pas- 
sage of a law for a legal separation agreeable to the rec- 
ommendation of Congress, and had defeated the resolution 
of John Brown designed for precipitate and illegal action. 
But, as a last, despairing effort, on Saturday, the 8th of 
the month. General Wilkinson, in order to suspend this 
address and prevent its adoption, offered a preamble recit- 
ing the discordant opinions which divided the people, and 
a resolution that a " committee be appointed to draft an 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 235 

address to the good people of the district," " solemnly 
calling on them to furnish the convention, at their next 
session, with instructions in what manner to proceed, on 
the important subject to them submitted," which was that 
of " independent government." The motion carried, and 
Wilkinson, Innes, Jouitt, Muter, Sebastian, xMlen and 
Caldwell were appointed as the committee. 

Crockett became so alarmed at the speeches of T3rown 
and Wilkinson, at the memorial of the latter to the In- 
tendant of Louisiana, and at this resolution calling upon 
the people for instructions, that he left his seat in the con- 
vention, hurried to Lexington, obtained the signatures of 
several hundred leading citizens of Fayette, remonstrating 
against any separation without the previous consent of 
Virginia, and with this returned to Danville by Monday, 
when he presented it to the convention, in which it was 
read. Wilkinson, who had pledged himself to obey in- 
structions, yielded to the inevitable with the best grace he 
could summon to his aid. On the same day, accordingly, 
he reported and read an address to Congress* praying 



* Wilkinson sent Miro a copy of the Lexington Gaielte containing the 
official report of the proceedings of 'the convention. In his letter to the 
Intendant dated February 14, 1789, he gave the following correct ac- 
count of the motives for this address to Congress on the subject of the 
Mississippi, over which Congress had no control, viz: 

" You will observe that the memorial to Congress w'as presented by 
me, and perhaps your first impression will be that of surprise at such a 
document having issued from the pen of a good Spaniaixl. But, on fur- 
ther reflection, you will discover that my policy is to justify in the eye 
of the world our meditated separation from the rest of the Union, and 
quiet the apprehensions of some friends in the Atlantic States, the bet- 
ter to divide them, because, knowing how impossible it is for the United 
States to obtain what we aspire to, not only did I gratify my sentiments 
and inclinations, but I also framed my memorial in such a style as was best 
calculated to excite the passions of our people ; and convince them that Con- 
gress has neither the power nor the will to enforce their claims and 
pretensions. Then, havihg energetically and publicly represented our 
rights and lucidly established our pretensions, if Congress does not sup- 
port them with efficiency {wldch you know it can not do, even if it had the 
inclination), not only will all the people of Kentucky, but also the 
whole world, approve of our seeking protection from anotlwr quarter." [Gay- 
arre, page 246.] 



236 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

that body to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi for 
the district ; which was adopted. He then read an ad- 
dress to the people,* which was referred to the committee 
of the whole and was never heard of again. It was sup- 
pressed. 

The committee of the whole reported to the convention 
the address of the Virginia assembly, which had been 
moved by Edwards and seconded by Marshall on the third 
day of the convention, had been reported by Edwards on 
the fourth day, an amendment to which was then offered 
in order to postpone its consideration, and which was on 
Monday, the seventh day, finally taken up, amended and 
adopted. The victory was won. The friends of Wilkin- 
son then ofl'ered a resolution thanking him for Ms memo- 
rial to the Intendant of Louisiana, which, as it was an 
empty compliment and could affect nothing practically in- 
jurious, was permitted to pass, by men who were too well 
content with their escape from real dangers to be severely 
critical as to non-essentials. And then the convention 



* The object of the resolution asking instructions from the people 
which was passed on Saturday, and added to Crockett's alarm, is thus 
explained in the Littell pamphlet, viz : 

" Here it was (in the November convention) that General Wilkinson 
read his treasonable memorial — and here it was that Mr. Brown reported 
his treasonable conference — and here it was (as they say in their first 
number,) that General Wilkinson made a treasonable motion that they 
should proceed to form a separate constitution, independent of the ac- 
tion of Virginia. The reader will see from the journal that Wilkinson 
made no such motion, and that the motion he did make, so far from 
tending to so rapid a progress, was of a retrograde tendency. The ob- 
ject was not to proceed to do any thing, except to impart to the people at 
large the information which had been received by that body, and to await 
their future instructions." 

What was the information which had been received by the conven- 
tion, to impart which to the people at large was the object of Wilkinson's 
resolutions, and upon which the future instructions of the people were de- 
sired ? It was the information given by Wilkinson and by John Brown 
as to the terms upon which Spain was ready to grant the navigation of 
the Mississippi ! To make an incendiary appeal to the people, based 
upon this information, with the hope that they would instruct to make 
the plunge. The address which was drawn up by Wilkinson and read, 
and was then suppressed, was to that purport and was designed to that 
end. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 237 

adjourned to meet again in August, 1789. The peril was 
over before it was fully comprehended. The turning 
point was the adoption of the resolution moved by Ed- 
wards and seconded by Marshall, that a decent and respect- 
ful address should be sent to the Virginia assembly for an 
act of separation agreeable to the recommendations of 
Congress.* 



* Captain John Jouitt was the man who gave the Virginia Assembly- 
timely notice of the approach of Tarleton, and thus saved it from cap- 
ture at Charlottesville. A handsome sword was voted to him in 1781 
for this service ; but the order of the Assembly not having been prop- 
erly carried out, the Assembly of 1786, of which Jouitt was a member, 
again voted the sword, which was then delivered. He was the father 
of Captain John Jouitt, U. S. A., and of Matthew Jouitt, Kentucky's 
most gifted artist. 



288 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The November Convention — A Call on John Bkown — First Informa- 
tion Given to Washington — First Publication in Reference to 
John Brown's Conduct Made at the Request of Washington — 
Colonel Marshall's Letter to Washington — Crockett, Muter . 
AND Sebastian Confirm Marshall — Colonel Brown Admits the 
Conduct Imputed to Brown was Treasonable— Denies that Brown 
Spoke as Represented by Humphrey Marshall — Contradicts not 
only Colonel Marshall, Muter, Crockett, and Sebastian, but 
Contradicts also John Brown Himself — Colonel Brown's Sdp-. 
pressions, Perversions, and Inaccuracies. 

In December, 1788, a call was made upon John Brown, 
in the columns of the Lexington GazHte, to communicate 
to the people the information which he had Avritten in his 
various letters, which w^ere far from having been kept as 
secret as his grandson would have one believe. The call 
evidently came from Wilkinson, or from some member of 
his coterie, and was designed to have the same effect as 
was intended by Wilkinson's address to the people, which 
had been suppressed. But the lesson taught the prudent 
Brown in the convention had rendered him even more 
circumspect than he was in that body. 

Some of the members w^io were sent to the Virginia 
House of Delegates from Kentucky (to the session of 
1788-9) were anxious that Washington should be informed 
of the movements in the district. Their wishes and ap- 
prehensions were communicated by them to Dr. David 
Stuart, one of the delegates from Fairfax county. * From 
Dr. Stuart, General Washins"ton received his first infor- 



* Dr. Stuart had married the widow of John Parke Custis — daughter 
of Benedict Calvert and a lineal descendant of the Lords Baltimore. 
Her first husband was Washington's step-son, and two of their children, 
George Washington Parke Custis (father of the wife of General R. E, 
Lee) and Nellie Custis who married Lawrence Lewis, were adopted by 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 239 

mation * concerning the Spanish movements in Kentucky ; 
and at his request Dr. Stuart published in the Alexandria 
Gazette^ of January 22, 1789, an article from which the 
following is an extract, viz : 

" By information received from Kentucky, we learn, that many of the 
principal people of that district are warmly in favor of a separation 
from the Union, and contend that it is injurious to the interest of that 
country, to be connected with the Atlantic States. This idea, pregnant 
with so much mischief to America, is said to be much cherished by in- 
telligence carried there by Mr. Brown, member of Congress, to this effect: 
That lie had the strongest assurance from the Spanish Ambassador, that on such 
a declaration, Spain would cede to them tlte navigation of tJie Mississippi and 
give them every support." 

The article proceeded to urge that measures should be 
taken to check this movement.f 



the general. Those relations, and his own high character, made Dr. 
Stuart an intimate and highly valued friend of Washington, as appears 
in their correspondence. Washington testified this regard in his will. 

"■•■ In Washington's reply to the letter of Colonel Thomas Marshall, of 
February 2, 1789,— the letter of Washington bearing date of March 27, 
1789 — he stated : " If I was greatly alarmed at the nature of the trans- 
actions mentioned in it, I was not less obliged to you for communicating 
so clear an account of them. It is true, I had previously received some 
verbal and written information on the subject of a similar tenor, but none 
which placed the affair in such an alarming point of view, as that in 
which 1 now behold it." This referred to the statement made to him 
by Dr. Stuart. 

t To a friend in Shelby county, Ky., Dr. Stuart wrote, under date of 
Fairfax county, September 30, 1806, a letter from which an extract was 
published in the Lexington Gazette, of December 1, 1806, as follows, viz: 

" I believe, however, I gave General Washington the first informa- 
tion of the fears entertained by manj"^ in Kentucky of attempts carry- 
ing on to separate that country from this. I received my information 
from the delegates'in the last assembly in which I served. At this dis- 
tance of time it is not in my power to name them particularly. I re- 
collect well Colonel Edwards, who has since, I think, been in Congress, 
was one of my informants. It was the wish of all that I should com- 
municate their apprehensions to the general, in hopes, that on his elec- 
tion to the Presidency, he would adopt some measures to defeat those 
attempts. This was a little previous to the first election. He expressed 
much regret, and immediately, I have no doubt, addressed himself to 
Colonel Marshall, for more particular information. [There is no evi- 
dence that this was the case. — T. M. G.] At his request, I inserted a short 
paragraph in the Alexandria papers, containing the information 1 had 
communicated. I have no copy of this paragraph, nor can it be pro- 



240 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Three months after the scenes narrated in the preceding 
chapter, and in which he was an active and influential 
participant, liad occurred; and while the details were still 
fresh in his memory, — on the^ 12th February, 1789, 
Colonel Thomas Marshall wrote to General Washington 
ail account of John Brown's letter to Muter; of what 
Brown had said in the convention in response to the call 
on him for information ; of liis own conclusions from that 
letter and from the language used by John Brown in the 
convention ; of General Wilkinson's trading privilege 
with New Orleans, and of the memorial which General 
Wilkinson had read in the convention ; and of the visit 
of J)r. John Connolly to himself and Muter and of all the 
details of their conversation. It is true, as stated by 
Colonel John Mason Brown (who, for a purpose which 
will hereafter appear, carefully suppressed what Colonel 
Marshall had written), that the accuracy of Colonel Mar- 
shall's recollection was not subjected to the test of a cross- 
examination ; but it was much more apt to have been cor- 
rect concerning events which had so recently transpired, 
tlian were the recollections given twenty-four years after 
by the witnesses who were subjected to that test in the 
suit of Innes v. Marshall. And it is a notable circum- 
stance, that not one of the witnesses whose testimony 
Colonel Brown cites in the slightest particular contra- 
dicted the statements made in the letter of Colonel Mar- 
shall to Washington. Tlie statement made in the Littell 
pamphlet, that the account given in that letter of Wil- 
kinson's memorial " was as unfavorable to Wilkinson as 
the truth of the case would permit," is itself an admission that 
the account was true ; while in his testimony in 1806, be- 
fore the legislative committee charged with the investiga- 
tion of the accusation that Benjamin Sebastian was a 
S{)anish pensioner. Judge Thomas Todd, one of the men 



cured. It was, liowcver, but short, merely expressive of the fears en- 
tertain(;(l, without, I believe, designating any characters ; at farthest 
but few. I recollect at different times, during tlie first term of his Pres- 
idency, to have heard him express great uneasiness respecting the 
opinions too generally entertained in that country." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 241 

who paid for the writing; and printing of that pamphlet, 
vouched for its accuracy under oatli,* Of the account 
given in that letter of the contents of John Brown's letter 
to Muter, the Littell pamphlet simply says that Colonel 
Marshall's account was as "unfavorable as possible," and 
then impliedly contradicts it by representing the Muter 
letter to have been the same as the letter to McDowell, 
which was not true. The reader will compare the pass- 
age in John Brown's letter to Muter relating to the pro- 
position of Gardoqui, with the description of its contents by 
Colonel Marshall ; and will see that the latter's description 
is not an exaggeration of those contents, and that a different 
representation could not have been made without a sacri- 
fice of the truth. The Littell pamphlet makes no allusion 
whatever to Colonel Marshall's statement of what John 
Brown said in the convention, in response to the call 
on him for information in regard to the proposition made 
to him by Gardoqui ; but, to repel the argument made in 
the Western World that the secrecy he maintained in re- 

*In that investigation Judge Todd was asked the following questions 
and gave the following replies, viz.: 

" Question : Was you not clerk of the Kentucky convention in the 
year 1788? 

Answer : I was. 

Question : Did not General Wilkinson produce a lengthy memorial 
and read the same in that convention, and then state that he had be- 
fore that time presented to the Governor or Intendant at New Orleans 
a copy thereof? 

Answer: He did. 

Question : Was that paper deposited and left with you as clerk, as 
other papers produced in like manner generally are ? 

Answer : It was not. . . . 

Question : Do you recollect the substance or object of the memorial 
read by General Wilkinson ? 

Answer : I do not ; but upon reading the letters published in the 
newspapers, as having passed between Colonel Marshall and General 
AVashington, it appears to me to be tolerably accurately stated in 
Colonel Marshall's letter." 

Colonel Brown, in quoting this matter from Todd's deposition, sup- 
presses all but the last question and answer, so as to conceal from his 
readers, so far as possible, that the memorial was read in the convention of 
November, 1788. 

16 



242 The Spanish Coyispiracij. 

garcl to the overture of Gardoqui was an evidence of con- 
scious guilt, John Brown asserted through Littell that he 
had disclosed that overture in the convention. The ques- 
tion, then, is, whether John Brown in that convention sim- 
ply informed his auditors that, while he did not feel at 
liberty to mention what had occurred in the private con- 
ferences between Don Gardoqui and himself, yet he could 
assure them that, provided they acted with unanimity, 
every thing they desired was within their reach, as stated 
by Colonel Marshall? or, whether he told them plainly 
what Don Gardoqui had proposed, as asserted by John 
Brown himself in Littell? 

One of those statements must be true and the other 
false. If Colonel Marshall's statement was not true, then 
he was a deliberate falsifier; for, if John Brown had made 
a disclosure of the conference between Gardoqui and him- 
self to the convention, Colonel Marshall could not possibly 
have understood him as he reported him. And it would 
have been a falsification without a motive for the decep- 
tion ; — because John Brown's own statement makes a worse 
case against him than does that of Colonel Marshall. But, 
if the statement of John Brown that he had made the dis- 
closure publicly to the Danville convention had been true, 
what then must be thought of the conduct of James 
Brown, who, in that case, was unquestionably aware of 
the fact and of the nature of the overture made by Gar- 
doqui, in positively denying that any such proposition had 
ever been made to his brother, and in villifying James M. 
Marshall for mentioning and describing the contents of 
the letter of John Brown to Muter? In that case, James 
Brown stands convicted of vehemently denying that his 
brother had written in a letter what he knew he had 
uttered in a public speech in the presence of witnesses ! 

On the other hand, if Colonel Marshall's statement in 
the letter to Washington was true, then that of John 
Brown in the Littell pamphlet was deliberately false. 
The reader has seen what other suppressions and falsifica- 
tions John Brown was guilty of in that pamphlet. He 
has also seen that the other statements of Colonel Mar- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 243 

shall's letter were fully corroborated. As to this, Benja- 
min Sebastian, in his deposition in the suit of Innes v. 
Marshall, was asked : " Do you recollect that, in the Ken- 
tucky convention of 1788, John Brown, then a member of 
Congress, was called on to give information of what had 
been communicated from Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, 
to him on the subject of the Mississippi, and if you recol- 
lect the information then given by John Brown, detail it?" 
To which Sebastian answered : " This deponent recollects 
that John Brown was called on to give information to the 
convention respecting some communication made to him 
by Gardoqui ; but as far as my memory serves me, the in- 
formation was made in such ambiguous terms that nothing 
could certainly be collected from it. Great advantages, it 
was said, would result to Kentucky by the adoption of 
some plan ; but whether it was a commercial one or of 
some other nature, this deponent does not now recollect." 
A very convenient memory, to be sure, but, as far as it 
goes, this confirms Colonel Marshall as to the ambiguity 
of Brown's answer, and contradicts Brown as to its direct- 
ness. Colonel Joseph Crockett, in his deposition in the 
same case, said that " John Brown made a short speech in 
said convention, which was about this : ' That he had it 
from the highest authority, that if we would separate from 
Virginia, every thing we could wish for was within our 
•power to reach!'" On being asked what authority John 
Brown alluded to, or what authority he understood him to 
allude to, Crockett responded : " I do not recollect that he 
named any particular authority, but my impression was, and 
is, that it was Spanish authority that he alluded to in said com- 
munication." To the interrogatory of Innes, whether or not 
John Brown was " requested to give the convention infor- 
mation which he possessed relative to the navigation of 
the Mississippi before he made the speech hereinbefore 
stated by you," * Colonel Crockett answered aflirmatively. 



* It will be observed that the request was made at the suggestion of 
Wilkinson, and was a part of the plan which had been prearranged. 
Wilkinson did not need the information, but desired Brown to confirm 
the hint he had himself given out, which Brown did, though ambigu- 
ously. 



244 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

To the further question : " Did he say any thing more than 
merely to state the fact as detailed by you in your an- 
swer to the third interrogatory of the defendant?" The 
witness responded : " I answer, that, what I stated in my 
answer to the third interrogatory of the defendant was 
the substance of and all that was said by John Brown in the 
convention — perhaps he might have used more words." 
The very interrogatories of the plaintiff', Innes, imply an 
admission of the substantial accuracy of the recollection 
of the witness. The questions and the answers equally 
and fully confirm the statement of Colonel Marshall, and 
contradict that of John Brown as made by Littell. This 
deposition, given on the 29th of January, 1813, twenty- 
four years after the occurrence described, clearly shows 
that, notwithstanding the ambiguity of Brown's state- 
ment, he was understood by the witness, as he was equally 
well understood by others who heard him, to intimate to 
the convention that he knew from Gardoqui's own lips, 
that the Spaniard was ready to grant to Kentucky the 
navigation of the Mississippi, on condition that the dis- 
trict would declare its independence and assume sover- 
eignty ; and that this meant a separation from the Union 
as well as from Virginia is shown by the letters of Wil- 
kinson to Miro, and by that of John Brown to Muter.* 



* In the change of front made by many good and true men during the 
administration of John Adams, Colonel Crockett was one of those who 
left the Federal and united with the Republican party under Jefferson. 
He was appointed United States Marshal in place of Samuel ]McDowell, 
Jr., who attributed his removal to the misrepresentations and influence 
of "the Browns," who had become intensely hostile to all the Mc- 
Dowell family, as they were also to Muter. Colonel Crockett was 
friendly with Innes, who was judge of the court of which Crockett was 
marshal, and also with John Brown. He shielded them all he could, 
and in his testimony went to the utmost limit in their behalf to which 
he could go withovit sacrificing truth. He stated that John Brown did 
not within his hearing, either in the convention or in conversation out- 
side of it, advocate or urge a dismemberment of the Union, which was 
true, as, according to his own statement, all that Brown said was the 
ambiguous answer Crockett had already attributed to him. The mem- 
ory of Crockett was somewhat at fault in several particulars. He evi- 
dently did not, when he testified, perceive the drift of Brown's resolu- 
tion, which he attributed to Colonel Marshall. He also attributed the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 245 

But there is not wanting other evidence to sustain this 
sworn testimony. In the letter of Judge Muter, by which 
he accompanied the publication of the letter of John 
Brown to him, dated August 20, 1806, and published in 
the Western World, he stated : "As to the information or 
assurance given by Mr. Brown, [in the jSTovember conven- 
tion — T. M. G.], I can not at this distance of time recollect 
particularly ; my impressions are, that he assured the con- 
vention that all they asked with respect to the navigation of the 
Mississippi was in their power to obtain." * The reader can 



address to the Assembly of Virginia to Wilkinson and Brown. The for- 
mer was on the committee, the latter was not. They were both opposed 
to it in toto, but, after Crockett had obtained the remonstrance from 
Fayette, they amended it by lugging in the question of the navigation 
of the Mississippi, and, in that form, assented to it in the committee of 
the whole, after having done all in their power to defeat it. What 
Colonel Crockett thought of their proceedings at the time is seen from 
the energy and expedition with which he obtained signatures to the re- 
monstrance against those proceedings. The nature and tone of the 
discussions in the November convention is also plainly discerned in the 
statement of Colonel Crockett in his letter to A. K. Marshall, in 1806: 
" I was in the convention of 1788 with Colonel Marshall, and knew he 
was opposed to a violent separation from the United States, and took on that 
subject most decided grounds." Why should Colonel Marshall have taken 
most decided grounds in the convention in opposition to a separation 
from the United States, if nothing was said or done in that convention 
to warrant the conviction that there was in that convention a party 
which was endeavoring to accomplish that separation? 

The friendship which existed between this gallant man and Colonel 
Marshall was ended by the death of the latter in 1803, but it was con- 
tinued between Colonel Crockett and Colonel Marshall's descendants. 
Among those who have a just satisfaction that this heroic soldier and 
true patriot was their ancestor are General S. W Price ; Prof. James 
Taylor, of Bloomington, 111.; Colonel Joseph C. Mitchell, of Chariton, 
Iowa; George Shanklin, of Lexington, Ky.; Melancthon Young and 
Mrs. Chas. Mann, of Nicholasville ; Dr. John McCalla, Washington, D. 
C; Mrs. Anna Letcher, Nicholasville ; Hon. Wm. Woodson, Lexington, 
Mo.; and Colonel Bennett H. Young, of Louisville. 

* In the midst of all the reprehension which the character and con- 
duct of Muter subsequent to 1788 unavoidably excite, one who remem- 
bers his real patriotism in time of need can not help feeling for him 
much commiseration. He had been a Colonel of Infantry in the State 
Line (not the commander of a ship, as stated in Collins), but was not 
at all distinguished. For a time he was commissioner of the Virginia 
war office, but an investigation of its affairs and of his management by 



246 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

form his own estimate, as to bow far the testimony of Se- 
bastian and Crockett and the statement of Muter confirm 

a legislative committee induced a report from its chairman, John Page, 
that it was in miserable condition, that Muter was not quaUfied for the 
position, and recommending his immediate dismissal. This was about 
to be done, when Muter resigned, March 21, 1781. [Virginia State Pa- 
pers, Vol. I, page 587]. He came to Kentucky in 1783, and in 1785 was 
elected judge of the district court. Part of his career in Kentucky has 
been already stated in these pages. The letter he published in 1790 
accompanying that of John Brown was dictated by his desire to show, 
that he had consented to the publication of the extract from Brown's 
letter, not by a becoming sense of what was due to truth, which had 
been falsified, but by a desire to prevent a duel. He continued friendly 
with Colonel Marshall. But when the district became a state in 1792, 
Innes, who was already judge of the federal court, was appointed chief 
justice of the court of appeals; while Muter, who had been chief jus- 
tice of the district court, was reduced to be judge only of Oyer and Ter- 
miner, with a salary which remained unfixed. It was generally under- 
stood that this was the penalty for having published John Brown's letter. 
Innes preferred the federal office, and then Muter was appointed to fill 
the vacancy. The implied contract under which this appointment was 
given and accepted, may be presumed from the fact that, after that day. 
Muter never crossed Colonel Marshall's threshold. In later years, he 
united with Sebastian in a decision, in the case in which Kenton and Mc- 
Connell were the parties, which would have vitiated nine-tenths of all 
the land titles in the state. Both branches of the legislature passed 
resolutions declaring the decision to have been corrupt, and to remove 
the two judges; but the movement failed for a want of a two-thirds 
majority in both branches, and the judges clung to their places. Shrink- 
ing under the pof^ular indignation and fearing that in the next Assem- 
bly the requisite majority would be obtained. Muter then turned around 
and united with Wallace in a reversal of his own decision. There was 
great anxiety to be rid of him, but he clung to his office until he man- 
aged to negotiate a bargain with the legislature for a pension of $300 per 
annum conditioned upon his resignation. In the next Assembly an 
effort was made to repeal the law granting the pension, but it was 
vetoed by the governor. The succeeding legislature, however, abolished 
it. He then became a pensioner on the bounty of Judge Thomas Todd, 
who was his successor. It was in the midst of these troubles, feeling 
that his means of subsistence were dependent on the will of those men, 
that Muter equivocated by publishing a letter referring to Wilkinson's 
memorial as of a commercial nature, and protesting that " there was 
nothing in John Brown's letters, information or assurance which im- 
pressed me with a belief that Mr. Brown intended to unite this country 
with Spain, or that his communications related to any thing other than 
of a commercial nature." How the poor old man had been really im- 
pressed by John Brown's letter may be read in his address of October 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 247 

Colonel Marshall's account of what John Brown said in 
the convention, and justify the conclusion he drew there- 
from. They certainly disprove the statement made by 
John Brown through Littell, as to the nature of his utter- 
ances. 

When the depositions in the suit of Innes v. Marshall 
were taken, twenty-four years had passed, the times were 
changed, no public danger threatened, men who had for- 
merly clashed had been reconciled, there was a general 
disposition to throw the mantle of oblivion over the past, 
men were reluctant to give testimony which reflected 
upon others high in official station, and it was most diffi- 
cult to elicit the facts. If any w^ay was opened for an 
evasion they generally availed themselves thereof. Sam- 
uel McDowell was asked : " Have you any knowledge of 
a proposition being made at any time by any member of 
the convention to separate absolutely and unconditionally 
from the United States, and to form a connection with 
any other government ?" As no proposition in these terms 
had been made, McDowell, of course, replied, that he had 
" no knowledge or recollection of such a proposition ever 
having been made by any one." In reply to another ques- 
tion, he said that he had never heard Brown nor Innes 
" express a wish to sever the Union, or to have any con- 
nection with Spain except to trade to [N'ew Orleans." They 
had, then, expressed a wish for such a connection with 
Spain as would enable them to trade to Kew Orleans, and 
both knew that the privilege of that trade could only be 
had by a separation from the Union, though, it would 
seem, John Brown had concealed that fact from McDowell, 
and led him to believe that it could be obtained by Ken- 
tucky as a member of the Union. 

Caleb Wallace was also asked : " In that meeting held 
in July, 1788, by the said members, was there any motion 
or proposition made by any member of that body to sepa- 



15, 1788. It may be further seen in his letter published in 1790, in 
which he refers to his apprehensions and sense of duty when the 
" business of a total separation was up for consideration," which could 
only have meant a separation from the Union as well as from Virginia. 



248 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

rate the district of Kentucky from the United States of 
America, establish an independent government, and fonn 
a co7inection with the governmeyit of Spain or any other 
'power ? " And Wallace, who had himself advocated the 
immediate framing of a constitution, the organization of 
the district into an independent and sovereign state, and a 
separation from Virginia without the sanction of law, the 
effect of which would have been to have detached Ken- 
tucky from the United States, and the object of which is 
explained by Wilkinson's engagement with and letters to 
Miro, and by the overture of Gardoqui to John Brown, 
of both of which Wallace had then been informed ; — Wal- 
lace, who, in this same deposition, concealed the fact that 
he had himself either offered or seconded, and had advo- 
cated a resolution to immediately frame a constitution 
and had urged an immediate separation from Virginia, 
and who paid for, published and circulated Littell's state- 
ment that such a " motion was never made ; " — the ingenu- 
ous and candid Wallace — this " Israelite, indeed, in whom 
there was no guile;" — Wallace replied that he did not 
recollect that such a proposition as that indicated in the 
interrogatory had been made by any one in the July con- 
vention ! Asked the same question of the November con- 
vention, of the proceedings of which he was a spectator, 
he made substantially the same answer thereto. No reso- 
lution or motion in those terms having been offered in 
either convention, the answer can not be said to have been 
untrue. 

Greenup was asked : " Did you in July, 1788, hear a 
motion made and advocated by either James Wilkinson, 
Caleb Wallace, Benjamin Sebastian, or the plaintiff 
(Innes) to separate the then district of Kentucky from the 
State of Virginia and the United States, and Jorm a con- 
nection with the Spanish government ? " And, of course, 
he answered that he had not heard such a proposition 
from any person ; for, in fact, no motion in those terms 
had been made. Asked substantially the same question 
concerning the November convention, Greenup made the 
same reply ; qualifying it, however, by a reference to the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 249 

resolution of Wallace, or Wilkinson, wliicli he made the 
mistake of saying had been offered at the N^ovember con- 
vention. 

To substantially the same question Isaac Shelby re- 
sponded : " In no convention of which I was a member, 
did I ever hear a motion or proposition madeby any mem- 
ber, to separate Kentucky from the United States, and 
form a connection with Spain," and that " he never did hear, 
nor was he ever informed that any member of any con- 
vention had made or advocated a proposition to separate 
Kentucky from the Union, to establish it into a separate 
government, and form a connection with any foreign power ; " 
and that he had never heard John Brown " express a sen- 
tence to him that he understood as having any desire to 
attach this country to Spain." 

The identity of the questions and of the answers in 
these several examinations reveals the objects of the in- 
terrogatories, which was to mislead. The answers tell 
what was not done ; they are silent as to what did take place. 
It has not been charged that a motion or proposition em- 
bracing the terms indicated in the interrogatories had been 
made or advocated by any one in any convention. The 
charge was, that the movement to separate Kentucky from 
Virginia illegally, and to frame a constitution, and organize 
government, and declare independence without a law for 
the purpose, was designed by the leaders who advocated 
it as the first step in the programme which had in view 
the separation of Kentucky from the Union and an alli- 
ance with Spain, as had been distinctly agreed upon be- 
tween Wilkinson and Miro, and as was as distinctly out- 
lined in Brown's conference with Gardoqui and in his 
letter to Muter. The questions were framed so that the 
replies might not meet the issue that was presented. Not 
one of those witnesses, nor any other, was asked a question 
or gave an answer which directly or by implication im- 
peached the accuracy of Colonel Marshall's statement 
concerning what Brown had said in the convention, or 
was inconsistent therewith. So far as their testimony 
bears upon the subject at all, it contradicts that of Brown 



250 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

as made by Littell, and leaves that of Marshall undis- 
puted. * 



* The following is the full text of the letter of Colonel ^Marshall to 
which reference has been made : 

Fayette County, 12th February, 1789. 
Dear General : 

The nature of the subject upon which I do myself the honor to ad- 
dress you, will I hope be admitted as an excuse for the trouble you will 
have in reading this letter. The political situation of this western 
country appears to me to be some thing critical, and therefore I have 
undertaken, though reluctantly, to give you a state of facts preceding 
our present situation, so far as they have fallen within my knowledge. 

In the spring, 1787, General Wilkinson went to New Orleans with a 
cargo of tobacco, etc., and was requested by the governor of that place 
to give his sentiments freely, in writing, respecting the political interest 
of Spain and the Americans of the United States inhabiting the western 
waters. This he did in an essay, as he calls it, contained in about 15 or 
20 sheets of paper. I saw the governor's letter to him acknowledging 
the receipt of it, and informing him that he would lay it before the king 
of Spain ; a copy of this essay he produced and read in our late conven- 
tion held for the district ; and as well as my memory (which I acknowl- 
edge is not very accurate) serves me, the substance of it is as follows : 

He urges our natural right of following the current of the rivers flowing 
through our country into the sea. He states the extent of our country, 
the richness of our soil, abounding in choice productions proper for for- 
eign markets, to which we have no means of conveying them, should the 
Mississippi be shut up against us. He states the advantages Spain might 
derive from allowing us the free use of that river. He goes on to show 
the rapid population of this country, and the eagerness with which 
every individual looks forward to that navigation. He states the gen- 
eral abhorrence with which the people of the western waters received 
the intelligence that Congress was about to sacrifice their dearest interest 
by ceding to Spain the navigation of the Mississippi for twentj' or thirty 
years, and represents it as a fact that they are on the point of separating 
themselves totally from the Union on that account. 

He addresses himself to their fears by a pompous display of our 
force, and urges that should Spain be so blind to her true interest as to 
refuse us an amicable participation in the navigation of that river, and 
thereby force us into violent measures, " Great Britain stands with her 
arms expanded ready to receive us," and assist our efforts for the ac- 
complishment of that object, and quotes a conversation he had a few 
years ago with a member of the British Parliament to that effect. He 
states the facility with which their province of Louisiana might be in- 
vaded bv the united forces of the British and Americans, by means of 
the river Illinois, and the practicability of proceeding from thence to 
their province of New Mexico, it not being more than twenty days. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 251 

The statement of Brown's answer in the convention to 



Britain, he says, will in that case aim at the possession of Louisiana and 
New Orleans for herself, and leave the freedom of the navigation to 
America ; and urges pretty forcibly the great danger the Spanish inter- 
est in North America would be in from the British power, should that 
nation possess herself of the mouth of the Mississippi, and thereby hold 
the two grand portals of North America,— that river and the St. Law- 
rence ; and concludes with an apology for the freedom with which he 
has treated the subject, and adds, that it has at their own particular re- 
quest been drawn from a man "whose head may err, but whose heart 
can not deceive." 

This essay has, I am told, been laid before the Court of Madrid ; 
and as a violent separation from the United States seems to be laid 
down as the ground work upon which every other consequence de- 
pends, I think it probably has produced instructions from that Court to 
the Spanish resident at Congress, that if the Western country should 
declare itself separate from the Union, to avail himself of that event. 
I found this conjecture upon Mr. Brown's confidential letters from Con- 
gress to his friends in this district; some of those letters I have seen. 

He mentions that in a private conversation, which he had with Don 
Gardoqui, he was informed that so long as this country remained a part 
of the Union, we had nothing to expect from Spain, but were we ta 
declare ourselves separate from, and independent of, the United States, 
he was authorized to treat with us respecting commerce and the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi. 

Mr. Brown, having returned from Congress, was called upon in Con- 
vention in November last, to give such information respecting our 
affairs in Congress as might be proper for us to know. He told us that 
he did not think himself at liberty to mention what passed in private 
conversation between himself and Don Gardoqui respecting us; but 
this much he would venture to inform us, that provided we were united 
in our councils, every thing we could wish for was within our reach ; — 
meaning, as it appeared fully to me, that if we would assume govern- 
ment and declare separate from the Union, Spain would give us every 
indulgence we could ask for. 

About this time arrived from Canada the famous Doctor (now Col- 
onel) Conolly; his ostensible business was to inquire after, and re-pos- 
sess himself of, some lands he formerly held at the Falls of Ohio ; but I 
believe his real business was to soiind the disposition of the leading 
men of this district respecting this Spanish business. He knew that 
both Colonel Muter and myself had given it all the opposition in con- 
vention we were able to do, and before he left the district, paid us a 
visit, though neither of us had the honor of the least acquaintance with 
him. 

He was introduced by Colonel John Campbell, formerly a prisoner 
taken by the Indians, and confined in Canada, who previously informed 
us of the proposition he was about to make. He (Conolly) presently 



252 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the call made on him for information, made by Colonel 
Marshall to Washington is here repeated : 

" He told us that he did not think himself at liberty to mention what 
passed in private conversation between himself and Don Gardoqui 
respecting us; but this much he would venture to inform us, that, pro- 
vided we were united in our councils, every thing we could wish for 
was within our reach." 

In the first edition of his History of Kentucky, pub- 
lished in 1812, and in the second edition published in 1824, 

entered upon his subject, iirged the great importance the navigation of 
the Mississippi must be of to the inhabitants of the Western waters, 
shewed the absolute necessity of our possessing it, and concluded with 
assurances that were we disposed to assert our right respecting that 
navigation. Lord Dorchester was cordially disposed to give us powerful 
assistance, that his Lordship had (I think he said) four thousand British 
troops in Canada beside t\\ o regiments at Detroit, and could furnish us 
with arms, ammunition, clothing and money ; that, with this assistance, 
we might possess ourselves of New Orleans, fortify the Balize at the 
mouth of the river, and keep possession in spite of the utmost efforts of 
Spain to the contrary. He made very confident professions of Lord 
Dorchester's wishes to cultivate the most friendly intercourse with the 
people of this country, and of his own desire to become serviceable to 
us, and with so much seeming sincerity, that had I not before been ac- 
quainted with his chai'acter as a man of intrigue and artful address, I 
should in all probability have given him my confidence. 

I told him that the minds of the people of this country were so 
strongly prejudiced against the British, not only from circumstances 
attending the late war, but from a persuasion that the Indians were at 
this time stimulated by them against us, and that so long as those sav- 
ages continued to commit such horrid cruelties on our defenseless fron- 
tiers, and were received as friends and allies by the British at Detroit, 
it would be impossible for them to be convinced of the sincerity of Lord 
Dorchester's offers, let his professions be ever so strong ; and that, if his 
Lordship would have us believe him really disposed to be our friend, he 
must begin by shewing his disapprobation of the ravages of the Indians. 

He admitted of the justice of my observation, and said he had urged 
the same to his Lordship before he left Canada. He denied that the 
Indians are stimulated against us by the British, and says Lord Dor- 
chester observed that the Indians are free and independent nations, and 
have a right to make peace or war as they think fit, and that he could 
not with propriety interfere. He promised, however, on his return to 
Canada to repeat his arguments to his Lordship on the subject, and 
hopes, he says, to succeed. At taking his leave he begged very politely 
the favor of our correspondence ; we both promised him, provided he 
would begin it, and devise a means of carrying it on. He did not tell 
me that he was authorized by Lord Dorchester to make us these offers 
in his name, nor did I ask him ; but General Scott informs me that he 



The Spanish Consjpiracy. 253 

Humphrey Marshall, in giving an account of John Brown's 
performance in the convention, published, with quotation 
marks, the following version, viz : 

" That he did not think himself at liberty to disclose what had passed 
in private conferences between the Spanish minister, Mr. Gardoqui, and 
himself ; but this much in general he would venture to inform the Con- 
tion — that provided v-e are v.nanimous every thing we could tuish for is 
within our reach." 

Humphrey Marshall did not think it.necessary to name 
his authority for this quotation, because the letter of Col- 
onel Thomas Marshall had recently been published and 
widely commented upon, and nearly every well informed 
reader at the time knew that he repeated the account 
given by Colonel Marshall, which had remained unchal- 
lenged. Butler, in quoting from Humphrey Marshall's 
History, knew that he had obtained it from Colonel Thomas 
Marshall, and he accepted it as the true account, while he 
rejected that given by John Brown himself in Littell as 
false. The versions of the two Marshalls are identical in 
sense, and are almost identical in words ; the one using 
the word " mention " where the other says " disclose ; " 
the one using the word " conversation," while the other 
employs that of " conference ; " the one saying " united in 
council," and the other "unanimous; " — in every case the 
words employed meaning precisely the same thing, with- 
out the diiFerence of a shade in their signification. It is 
evident that if injustice was done to John Brown, it was 
by Colonel Marshall, and not by the historian, who simply 
repeated what he had a right to believe, and what he had 
obtained from the published statement of one who had 



told him that his Lordship had authorized him to use his name in this 
business. 

It appears plain to me that the offers of Lord Dorchester, as well as 
those of Spain, are founded on a supposition that it is a fact that we are 
about to separate from the Union ; else, why are those offers not made 
to Congress ? We shall, I fear, never be safe from the machinations of 
our enemies, as well internal as external, until we have a separate state, 
and are admitted into the L^nion as a federal member. I have the honor 
to be, with the most respectful esteem and regard, your most obedient 
and very humble servant, 

T. Marshall. 

T. ^Marshall to General Washington. 



254 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

been present, a man of intelligence and vigorous mind, 
whose veracity had never been assailed. 

Colonel John Mason Brown casually alludes to the pri- 
vate letter of Colonel Marshall, of the 12th of February, 
1789, addressed to General Washington, apparently for 
the sole purpose of saying that it was published after his 
death, " when it was too late to test the accuracy of the 
words used or try his judgment of the facts by cross-ex- 
amination." In that connection he states that nothing 
warranting the "alleged quotation " used by Humphrey 
Marshall, was ever published by Colonel Marshall or upon 
his authority. Characteristically Colonel Brown omitted 
to state, that the private letter published after Colonel 
Marshall's death was identical in sense and nearly identical 
in words with what he terms an "alleged quotation," and 
was the historian's ample authority ; then, as characterist- 
ically, he suppressed what Colonel Marshall had written. 
His statement that not a few of the delegates to the con- 
vention of November, 1788, were called to the witness 
stand and "under the sanction of their oaths, repelled the 
charge which the ' quotation ' insinuated," is so far from 
being true, that Sebastian and Crockett, the only witnesses 
who were asked a question or testified one word concern- 
ing what Brown had said in answer to the call on him for 
information, confirmed that charge, which was not " insin- 
uated," but was broadly and boldly stated in connection 
with that " quotation." 

Colonel Brown gives a list of men who were not called, 
in that suit, to verify the charge that Brown had used the 
language imputed to him. As Brown was not a party to 
that suit, and as the truth of Marshall's charges against 
Innes was alone involved therein, it is unimportant that 
these men were not made witnesses concerning Brown's 
utterances. What is significant, however, is, that Colonel 
Brown not only fails to give a single question asked by Innes 
discrediting the " quotation " made to the disparagement of 
his friend, but does not give a single answer which even tends 
to dispute the accuracy of that " quotation." Alleging that, 
out of all the depositions taken in that suit, not one " sus- 



The Spanish Consjnracy. 255 

tains the alleged quotation, or warrants any inference like 
it," and mentioning that of Sebastian, he suppresses what 
Sebastian said. And he not only carefully suppresses the 
statement of Crockett, which fully sustains that written 
by Colonel Marshall and "quoted" by the historian, but 
suppresses also the question propounded by Innes, which 
impliedly admitted the accuracy of Crockett's recollec- 
tion. He suppresses the fact that the " alleged quota- 
tion " was but a reproduction of what Colonel Marshall 
had communicated to Washington. " The Political Be- 
ginnings" details at length what Shelby, A\^allace and 
others did not recollect to have heard. But, while naming 
John Allen, of Bourbon, as one of the witnesses in that 
case, and boldly asserting that not one of those witnesses 
had uttered a word to warrant the charge made by Hum- 
phrey Marshall against John Brown, the talented author 
of the book in question was extremely careful to 07nit 
what John Allen had said. It might have disarranged 
his argument somewhat, if he had informed his readers, 
that Judge Allen had deposed, that, in the ISTovember con- 
vention of 1788, there was " a strong party in favor of 
declaring Kentucky independent, and of organizing a gov- 
ernment, without applying to the Legislature of Virginia 
or to Congress for their previous consent. Mr. John Brown 
was a member of that convention and advocated that 
measure. Colonel Hary Innes was also an advocate of 
that measure." The author of the " Beginnings " felt that, 
after having thus mentioned Allen as one of the witnesses, 
and having assured the confiding public, that 7io witness 
had uttered a word to sustain Humphrey Marshall's 
charges, he could scarcely afford to let them know, that 
Allen had sworn, that, in the November convention, " there 
were two distinct parties; the object of one was to en- 
deavor to get a law passed from the State of Virginia per- 
mitting Kentucky to be separated from her, to become a 
new State, to form her own constitution, and to be ad- 
mitted into the General Government, and be upon an 
equal footing with the other States of the Union. The 
other party was for separating from Virginia, and to form 



256 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

a government independent of her and of the General Govern- 
ment, and to form connections where they should find it most 
beneficial to her interest^ Innes, Judge Allen testified, was 
an active member, and he considered him as advocating 
the course of the latter party as he had stated. The other 
leaders of the party, which was in favor of separating from 
Virginia without a law for the purpose, he said, were 
" General James Wilkinson, who was considered as among 
the first, Mr. John Brown, Mr. Caleb Wallace, Benjamin 
Sebastian and some others not recollected." He did not 
remember whether Adams, of Madison, was in the July 
or in the November convention, but he did know that he 
was an advocate of the measure. Nor did he remember 
whether Caleb Wallace was in the July or November con- 
vention, or in both. The evidence of Allen was that of 
a man who was never asserted to have been animated by 
personal hostility to Brown, nor by jealousy of him or of 
any of his associates."^ Nevertheless, it was necessary to 
suppress his evidence. 

Colonel John Mason Brown had read the letter of Col- 
onel Thomas Marshall to Washington. He knew that the 
" alleged quotation " published in Humphrey Marshall's 
History was but a repetition of what Colonel Marshall had 
written. He knew also that this account of what John 
Brown had said in the convention was corroborated by 
both Sebastian and Crockett. He suppressed the fact that 
this account had been thus written by Colonel Marshall, 



*Johu Allen was born in James City County, Va., in 1749. Entering 
the patriot army at the beginning of the Revolution, he rose to the rank 
of Major. He was well educated and a well trained lawyer. Marrying 
Miss Jane Tandy, of a respectable family in Albemarle, he came to 
Kentucky some years prior to 1788, and located in Fayette. Upon the 
organization of Bourbon, he settled in Paris. He was the first judge of 
the district court of Bourbon, and afterwards of the circuit court. In 
point of personal worth and integrity of character. Judge Allen was not 
inferior to any man in Kentucky of his time, and to but feAV in point of 
intelligence and ability. His descendants, many of whom live in Bour- 
bon, Nicholas and Bath, have just cause for pride in such an ancestor. 
Among them were the late Sandford Allen, of Sharpsburg, and the late 
Wm. C. Allen, of Owingsville. The present Frank Allen, of Augusta, 
is his grandson. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 257 

an eye and ear witness ; that it had been thus corroborated 
by Sebastian and Crockett, and had never been challenged 
by a single question, nor disputed by a solitary witness. 
He then asserted that " Muter never said, wrote, or printed, 
that Brown spoke at all in the convention, much less that 
he sjyoke treasonably. No memoranda of his have ever been 
discovered or mentioned corroborative of any insinuation 
against Brown's acts or opinions in the convention." The 
extraordinary pains taken by Colonel Brown to suppress 
the statements made by Colonel Marshall, by Sebastian, 
and by Crockett, relating to John Brown's speech in the 
convention, and his repeated claim that the " alleged quo- 
tation" originated with Humphrey Marshall, discloses his 
own sense of the nature of that speech, and his own judg- 
ment of the conduQt of John Brown, if he had made the 
speech attributed to him. But the terms in which the 
above denial as to Muter are made convey a distinct ad- 
mission, that the speech attributed to John Brown was 
^^treasonable," and that ?f the premise was true the con- 
clusion drawn from it was just. It appears also, that Col- 
onel Brown had searched for some word, or writing, or 
publicatioyi by Muter, which stated that John Brown had 
spoken in the convention, and had been unable to find any 
intimation that John Brown " had spoken at all in the con- 
vention, much less that he spoke treasonably." N'otwith- 
standing this bold and confident assertion by Colonel 
Brown, it is certain that Muter not only wrote, hwi printed, 
and published in the Western World (a paper with whose 
columns Colonel Brown was familiar) a letter, August 20, 
1806, in which he distinctly stated, that John Brown had 
spoken in that convention, and had " assured the convention 
that all they asked for with respect to the yiavigation of the 
Mississippi was in their power to obtain;'' — which assurance 
was given by John Brown in reply to the call on him to 
inform the convention concerning the communication of 
Gardoqui ; and which statement by Muter is the substance 
of what Colonel Marshall wrote and Humphrey Marshall 
" quoted !" Colonel Brown, it will be remembered, had 
17 



258 The Sjmriish Conspiracy. 

previously alleged, that Muter had voted for sundry reso- 
lutions in the July convention, of which Muter's own let- 
ter, published in Littell's " Narrative " (with which Colonel 
Brown was familiar), showed that he was not a member; 
and that Muter had then received, and had communicated 
to Colonel Marshall, John Brown's letter, which Muter's 
own letter, published in the Western World, showed that 
Muter did not receive until the fall of 1788 ; and that 
Muter, when he had issued his address of October 15th, 
1788, had already conferred with Connolly, whom, as all 
the evidence shows. Muter had never seen until after tlie 
adjournment of the November convention. And now 
Colonel Brown, with habitual infelicity, adds to the inac- 
curacies which had preceded it, this denial that Muter had 
ever said, written, or printed that John Brown "spoke 
at all at the convention, much less that he spoke treason- 
ably ! " 

While thus admitting, that, if John Brown had spoken 
in the Danville convention as represented, he had " spoken 
treasonably," and that, in that case, the charge against 
him was merited; Colonel Brown labors through limping 
pages of his "Political Beginnings" to make it appear 
that this representation was maliciously fabricated by Hum- 
phrey Marshall. Knowing thoroughly well the scheme 
concocted between Wilkinson and Miro ; familiar with the 
writings of Wilkinson to Miro, in which Brown, Innes, 
Wallace, and Sebastian are mentioned as his associates 
and abettors in the conspiracy ; having before his own 
eyes the proof that Gardoqui had made a similar proposi- 
tion to his grandfather, and that the latter had promised 
Gardoqui to " aid " in securing its acceptance ; confronted 
by his grandfather's letter to Muter, in which he distinctly 
urged that the necessary step should be taken to place 
Kentucky in a position to avail herself of Gardoqui's oifer, 
and by the evidence of such men as Allen, Crockett, 
Thomas Marshall, and others, as to his grandfather's co- 
operation with Wilkinson and Sebastian in the effort to 
induce Kentucky to take that step ; — in the face of all this, 
Colonel Brown is bold enouii:h to assert that the " so-called 



The Spa7iish Conspiracy. 259 

' S[)anish conspiracy,' gloomily imagined as concocted with 
Gardoqui, was but a figment of an incensed political ad- 
versary's brain ; a suspicion unsupported by a particle of 
testimony, unvouched by document, unestablished b}^ dep- 
osition, and refuted by every proof." 

After perusing that, the reader Avill not be in the least 
surprised, that Colonel Brown, with full knowledge that 
his grandfather had certainly informed both Greenup and 
Wilkinson of Gardoqui's proposition ; that his " sliding 
letter" to McDowell was shown at once to Innes, and was 
known to others in the July convention of 1788 ; knowing 
that, in the Littell pamphlet, his grandfather had stated, 
that he had made a public disclosure of Gardoqui's propo- 
sition in the convention of !^ovember, 1788 ; — the reader 
will not be surprised, that Colonel Brown, knowing all 
these facts, and scrupulously and characteristically sup- 
pressing them, has the hardihood to affirm, that " under the 
cautious advice of Madison, information of Gardoqui's 
communication was thus kept from the knowledge of all 
persons in Kentucky save McDowell and Muter;" nor 
will they be in the least astonished at the remarkable cool- 
ness with which the grandson, in direct contradiction of 
his own grandfather, and with the most contemptuous as- 
sumption of the utter ignorance of his readers, asserts, 
that ^'■Brown recognized the public dayiger that might come from 
divulging Gardoqui's phm," and that ^^Brown judged it highly 
inexpedient to narrate even to the sovereignty convention of 
November what Gardoqui had said, for he feared lest rash men. 
might make trouble by advocating what Gardoqui proposed!'^ 
These suppressions and conflicting statements between 
grandfather and grandson, in the language of the talented 
author of the " Beginnings," "give rise to unpleasant sug- 
gestions :" Either Colonel Brown believed, or he did not 
believe, the statement made by his grandfather through 
Littell, that, in answer to the call on him for information, 
John Brown had disclosed to the I»[ovember convention 
the proposition of Gardoqui. If he believed that state- 
ment to be false, it is unimportant what else he must nec- 
essarily have believed of the man who had thus authorized 



260 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

and circulated a deliberately false statement in his own 
behalf. Innocence neither needs nor resorts to falsehood 
for its vindication. But, if Colonel Brown, on the other 
hand, really discredited the statement of Colonel Marshall 
that John Brown had said that, provided the convention 
was united in their councils, all they could wish for was 
within their reach ; and, if he believed that, on the con- 
trary, John Brown had communicated the overture of 
Gardoqui to the convention, as John Brown himself 
claimed to have done; and, believing this, and suppress- 
ing the statement of his grandfather, and attributing that 
of Colonel Marshall to Humphrey Marshall, asserted that 
John Brown deemed it inexpedient to communicate to the 
convention what Gardoqui had said, " lest rash men might 
make mischief by advocating what Gardoqui proposed ;" — 
then, the facts have been very feebly stated if intelligent 
readers are not able to arrive at their own conclusions, as 
just as they are inevitable, concerning the " Political Be- 
ginnings," without suggestions from the writer. There 
can be no logical escape, however, from the alternatives 
presented. And whether Colonel Brown believed the 
statement written by Colonel Marshall to Washington, or 
that of John Brown, published in Littell, his own state- 
ment is without any authority whatever, and is contra- 
dicted by all the evidence from every source. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 261 



CHAPTER XVI. 



The Convention of November, 1788, Continued — The Question of the 
Navigation of the Mississippi Brought up by Wilkinson's Memo- 
rial AND the Overture of Gardoqui — The Prospect of Obtaining 
THAT Navigation, on the Terms of Wilkinson's Engagement with 
MiRO and the Overture of Gardoqui to John Brown, the Motive 
of the Wilkinson and Brown Party for their Hostility to the 
Address to the Virginia Assembly, and for their Support of 
John Brown's Resolution for an Immediate Framing of a Consti- 
tution and Separation from Virginia Without a Law for the 
Purpose — Their Own Statement in Littell to that Effect — More 
of Colonel Brown's Suppressions — Colonel Brown Convicted op a 
Want of Candor by his Own Standard— Colonel IMarshall's 
Letter of September 11, 1790, Shows He Made Neither Retraction 
NOR Qualification of his Charges — Further Misrepresentation 
BY John Brown — It is Repeated by Colonel Brown — John Brown's 
Failure to Defend Himself— He Shrinks from Testifying — His 
Alleged Memoranda of his Testimony Before the Legislative 
Committee Contradicted by his Own Deposition. 



To the reader who derives liis information solely from 
the perusal of " The Political Beginnings," it would ap- 
pear, that the subject of the navigation of the Mississippi 
came before the convention of November, 1788, solely 
during the discussion of the petitions from Madison and 
Mercer, (that an address to Congress to obtain that naviga- 
tion should be drawn), upon the resolution that the address 
should be prepared, and upon that address itself. * Yet 
it distinctly appears from Littell, whose authorized state- 
ment had been carefully studied by Colonel Brown, that 
the question of that navigation was brought before the 
convention by General Wilkinson, and by John Brown, 
under circumstances having no connection with those pe- 
titions, having no relation to that resolution nor to that 
address ; but which circumstances did refer exclusively to 



Political Beginnings," pages 198-S 



262 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Wilkinson's conference with Miro, and to the overture 
made by Gardoqui to John Brown ; — which conferences 
and overture (that Spain would grant the navigation to 
Kentucky, as a matter of treaty, if Kentucky would lirst 
withdraw from the Union), were authoritatively stated by 
Littell as the motive for the opposition made b}^ Wilkin- 
son, Brown, Innes, Sebastian, and their party, to Edwards' 
address to the assembly for an act of separation agreeable 
to the advice of Congress, and for their urging the resolu- 
tion of John Brown, which looked to an immediate and 
illegal separation, to an immediate declaration of inde- 
pendence and assumption of sovereignty, in order to avail 
themselves of the "prospect" held out by that confer- 
ence and overture. The address to Congress to obtain the 
navigation of the Mississippi, as the reader has seen, was 
not adopted until the last day of the convention, after all 
the schemes of Wilkinson and Brown had failed, and 
Wilkinson had been driven to postpone them under pres- 
sure of the remonstrance presented by Crockett. Colonel 
Brown makes no mention of the memorial to the Intend- 
ant of Louisiana, which Wilkinson had concerted with 
ISTavarro and Miro, which he had read in the convention, 
which had been forwarded to Madrid, and the effect of 
which was the direction to Gardoqui that induced his 
overture to John Brown. He quotes from depositions of 
members of the Danville convention, but suppresses every 
statement in those very depositions that the memorial was 
read in the convention. He does, however, mention the 
address to Congress which was finally adopted, and was 
prepared and read by Wilkinson, and states that, " after a 
vote of thanks to Wilkinson, for his paper on the Missis- 
sippi,'' the convention iidjourned, leaving the otherwise 
uninformed reader to suppose, that the " paper on the Mis- 
5i55Z/:»2;z " for which Wilkinson was thanked was the ad- 
dress to Congress on that subject ; — when the depositions, 
the official report, the statement of Littell, all of which he 
had read, and every other statement ever published, ex- 
plicitly informed him, that the paper in question, for 
which Wilkinson was thanked, was the " address presented 



The Spanish Coyispiracy . 263 

by General James Wilkinson to the Governor Intendant 
of Louisiana." The failure of Colonel Brown to mention 
this memorial, or to state that it was read in the conven- 
tion, his suppression of the fact that the question of the 
navigation of the Mississippi was brought before the con- 
vention by that memorial "^ and by John Brown's state- 



* While Wilkinson, after. doing what was in iiis power to defeat tlie 
address to the General Assembly, yielded to the desire that an appeal 
should be made to Congress to obtain the navigation of the Mississippi, 
which he knew Congress could not do, he explained to IMiro that the 
failure of Congress to accomplish the impossible could be used to still 
further exasperate the people and to aid the designs of Spain. At the 
same time he advised Miro that Spain should stand firm, refuse to ac- 
cede to the applications of Congress in behalf of the just rights of the 
western people, and close more completely than ever that navigation 
against all but himself and his associates. Every relaxation of rigor, he 
argued, would tend to postpone and defeat the Spanish designs ; while 
the greater the hardships which the people could be forced to feel would 
the more rapidly and certainly promote those designs. But let Wilkin- 
son speak for himself, viz : 

" In order to aid the favorable dispositions of Providence, to foment 
the suspicions and feelings of distrust already existing here, and inflame the ani- 
mosity between the eastern and the loestern states, Spain must resort to every 
artifice and other means which may be in her power. I have stated 
that the navigation of the Mississippi, and its admission as an independ- 
ent state and a member of the Union, are rightly claimed by the people 
of this part of the country, and constituting one of the principal condi- 
tions under which its connection with the Atlantic States is to continue. 
Hence it follows, that every manifestation of the power of Spain and of the 
debility of the United States, every evidence of the resolution of the former to 
retain exclusively for herself the right of navigation on the Mississippi, and 
every proof of the incapacity of the latter, will facilitate our views. 
Every circumstance also that will tend to impede our admission as an 
independent state will lessen the attachment of many individuals, in- 
crease the discontent of the people, and favor the execution of our plan ! 

" Until I devoted myself exclusively to the atlair fn which we are en- 
gaged, I confess that I could not discover the aim of the first treaty pro- 
posed by Gardoqui to Congress, but it seems to me now that I can pene- 
trate its policy. I consider it as profoundly judicious, and I am of 
opinion that it ought to be renewed and vigorously carried on, until its 
objects be attained, cost what it may, because, besides that the proposed 
relinquishment of the right of navigation of the Mississippi would im- 
mediately disrupt the Union, and separate forever the West from the 
East, the sanction of the treaty by Congress would make our situation so 
truly desperate that Great Britain would not venture to intervene in our 
favor and all our liopes would rest on the liberality of Spain. 



264 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

merit, that all that could be wished for concerning that 
navigation could he obtained, on the terms communicated 
to him by Gardoqui, was not accidental. And the course 
of Colonel Brown in reference thereto reveals his own 
sense of the damaging character of the facts he suppressed 
to the cause he had undertaken. 

Colonel Brown, in his " Political Beginnings," states^ 
that the official proceedings of the convention * note the 
resolution of John Brown as having been offered on the 
fourth day of the convention, immediately after the com- 
mittee of the whole reported that the petitions from Mer- 
cer and Madison were reasonable, and that a decent and 
manly address to Congress should be drawn accordingly- 
and that this resolution was offered " before the committees 
were ready with their reports." But the very official 
manuscript to which he refers, and which is reproduced in. 
the appendix of his most elaborate literary effort, shows 



The grant of this boon ought to be looked upon as the 'price of our attach- 
ment and gratitude, and I beg leave to be permitted to repeat, that there 
ynust be known no instance of its being extended to any other than those who ren- 
der aid and promote the interests of Spain in this part of the countnj. 

" I entreat you, sir, to believe, that this question of navigation is the 
main one on which depends the Union of the West and East, and 
that, if Congress can obtain the free use of the Mississippi, and if Spain 
should cede it without conditions, it would strengthen the Union, and 
would deprive Spain of all its influence on this district." [Wilkinson's 
letter to Miro, February 12, 1789, Gayarre, pages 230, 231, 232.] 

"■■■' On the 199th page of the " Political Beginnings," after publishing 
the resolution of the convention that the petition from Madison and 
Mercer were reasonable, and that an address to Congress be drawn 
accordingly, and stating the names of the committee charged with 
preparing the address, Colonel Brown says: 

"At this point, and before the committees were ready with their reports, 
the manuscript journal notes the following resolution, which it is cer- 
tainly strange that Marshall should not allude to while rehearsing the 
conduct of his enemy." 

Colonel Brown then publishes the resolution of .Tohn Brown, which 
has been already quoted, and which John Brown explained in Littell, 
was offered to defeat the address to the Assembly, and as a motive for 
adopting which the "pro.spect," of obtaining the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi [in what manner the reader knows] was hinted at. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 265 

that this statement is not true.* On the contrary, Col- 
onel Brown's own book contains the proof,t in that official 
statement, that the special committee, consisting of John 
Edwards, Thomas Marshall, Muter, Jouitt, Allen and 
Wilkinson, which had been appointed the day before to 
prepare " a decent and respectful address to the Assembly 
of Virginia for obtaining the independence of the district 
of Kentucky agreeable to the late resolution and recom- 
mendation of Congress," had, through its chairman, Ed- 
wards, made its report, which was read, immediately after 
the committee of the whole had reported the resolution 
for addressing Congress in accordance with the petitions 
from Madison and Mercer, and before the resolution of 
John Brown was called up by him. Colonel Brown was 
made aware by Littell, that an amendment to that address 
thus reported by the committee was offered in order to 
delay it ; that its consideration was postponed ; and that 
the resolution of his grandfather was then called up, for 
the purpose, as stated distinctly in Littell's pamphlet, of 



* After giving the resolution to prepare the address to Congress con- 
cerning the Mississippi, the official report, which Colonel Brown had 
])efore him when he made the statement above referred to, proceeds as 
follows, viz : 

" C>rdered, That a committee be appointed to prepare the said ad- 
dress; and a committee was appointed of Mr. Innes, Mr. Wilkinson, 
Mr. Marshall, Mr. Muter, Mr. Brown, Mr. Sebastian and Mr. Morrison. 

Mr. Edwards, from the committee appointed to draw up an address to 
the Assembly of Virginia for obtaining the independence of the district 
of Kentucky, reported that the committee had taken the matter intcv 
consideration and prepared an address which he read in his place, and 
then delivered the same in at the table, where it was again read, and an 
amendment thereto proposed. Ordered, That the said address, together 
with the amendment, do lie on the table. 

A motion was made by Mr. Brown for the convention to come to the 
following resolution, viz." 

Then follows the resolution of John Brown, which has already been 
quoted. The above is copied precisely as it appears in the Appendix of 
the " Political Beginnings," and contradicts the statement of the author 
of that book, in which it is difficult to determine whether Colonel 
Brown's contempt for the facts or his contempt for his readers is made 
the more conspicuous. 

t The Appendix of " The Political Beginnings " was prepared after 
the death of its author, by a gentleman unacquainted with the subject. 



266 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

defeating that address, and to give an opportunity for 
urging an immediate formation of a constitution, the or- 
ganization of government and the dechiration of independ- 
ence, without a law from the Assembly for the purpose. 
And while Colonel Brown affirms, that " whatever mark 
Brown made in the convention is to be found " in that 
resolution, which he asserts to have been Brown's " real 
avowal of political priiiciple and pilan" he carefully avoids 
giving the explanation of that "principle and plan" 
aflbrded by John Brown himself in Littell. This plan 
was, that, " as a further inducement to adopt this resolu- 
tion it was stated that there was a prospect of obtaining from 
Spain permission to export the -produce of the country by icay 
of the Mississij^pi," and that, then, to show what the pros- 
pect was, General Wilkinson made his speech and read his 
memorial, and John Brown disclosed the overture of Gar- 
doqui ! Wilkinson, Brown, Sebastian and Innes, all knew 
that the " prospect of obtaining from Spain the permission " 
in question was made contingent upon the separation of 
Kentucky from the United States, which Wilkinson had 
engaged with Miro to promote, and John Brown had 
promised Gardoqui to " aid." The first step to be taken 
in the accomplishment of that separation from the Union 
was to separate from Virginia witliout a law for the pur- 
pose, to frame a constitution, organize government, de- 
clare independence, and assume sovereignty, — to all of 
which John Brown's resolution was intended as a prelimi- 
nary, and the effect of which would have been to place 
Kentucky outside of the Union. The resolution was, in 
fact, a redemption of Brown's promise to the Spanish 
minister. And, as an inducement for its adoption, the 
prospect of obtaining the navigation of the Mississippi 
from Spain was stated ; — which John Brown knew could 
be realized only by a separation from the Union. The 
statement in Littell is, in fact, when analyzed, a confession 
by John Brown himself of all the charges made against 
him. This was, indeed, his "plan," and this his "polit- 
ical principle." The pretense that, after realizing that 
prospect in the way pointed out by Gardoqui, it was the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 267 

purpose of these men to apply for admission to the Union, 
which woukl have forfeited the privilege thus obtained, is 
too transparently absurd to recpiire argument for its refu- 
tation. This absurdity was apparent to John Brown h.im- 
self; he, therefore, suppressed the Muter letter, which 
would have made the absurdity plain to all, conceded the 
condition annexed by Gardoqui, and pretended that the 
privilege could be had b}' Kentucky as an independent 
state of the Union. 

The reader of the " Beginnings" will not fail to note 
that, while mention is made of the appointment of a 
special committee to prepare an address to the Assembly 
of Virginia, of which committee Edwards was the chair- 
man, yet it nowhere appears that Edwards ever reported 
or read the address in the convention. On the contrary, 
the statement of this fact, which is made in the official 
report, is eliminated from the account given in the " Be- 
ginnings," in which it is stated, that the resolution of John 
Brown was called up " at this point," when in fact the state- 
ment is made in the. official report, that at " that point " Ed- 
wards read the address to the Assembly. Why Edwards was 
thus ignored is explained by the statement which appears on 
page 201 of the " Beginnings," in reciting the proceedings 
of the last day of the convention, that " the address to the 
Legislature of Virginia was next reported by Mr. Innes, and 
' agreed to nemine contradicente.' Its tone was loyal and 
its expressions respectful and judicious." In a note at the 
bottom of this same page appears this statement : " This 
address to the Legislature of Virginia, is given by Mar- 
shall (Vol. I, p. 379, edition of 1812), but he imcandidly 
omits to mention that his enemy, Innes, was its mover. 
The manuscript journal of the convention explicitly re- 
cites that Innes, as chairman of the committee, reported the 
address, " which he read in his place and delivered in to 
the clerk's table, where it was again twice read and 
amended and agreed to nemine contradicerite." There is no 
intimation given in this connection, that this proceeding 
was in the committee of the lohole, and the reader would nat- 
urally infer that Innes had made this report to the con- 



268 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

vention as chairman of the special committee charged with pre- 
paring the address. On page 205 this charge of unfairness 
and want of candor on the part of the historian is repeated : 
" No less unfair is Marshall's total failure to mention Ju- 
nes as the reporter of the address to the Legislature of Vir- 
ginia. That address is replete with sentences that de- 
clare the ardent desire of the people of the district to be 
received into the Union as an independent state upon the 
consent and recommendation of Congress. Mention of 
Innes as its mover and adcocate would have vindicated his 
patriotism, his loyalty, and his moderation, and would 
have disproved all the suspicions that JVlarshall cherished. 
And the further fact, apparent from tlie journal, that the 
address prepared and reported by Innes, was ' agreed to 
nemine contradicente,' would have suggested to a more can 
did historian, that he who introduced and advocated that 
paper did not deserve the denunciation leveled against 
him as a disloyal conspirator, especially as his views were 
supported by the unanimous vote of the convention. It 
might, perhaps, be suggested in excuse for such omissions 
that Marshall, while preparing his history, had not access 
to the original journals of the convention, nor accurate 
information of what was said and done. But he published 
his book in 1812, and certainly knew, after 1806, the exact 
text of the journals through Littell's publications made 
that year, and avowed to be an appeal to documentary 
evidence." 

But, if the statements of Colonel Brown are true, the 
historian did w^orse than this. His " History " shows that 
he had a copy of the official journal before him as he 
wrote. Yet he not only omitted to state that Innes w^as 
the mover, advocate, author and reporter of the address to 
the assembly, but he did state that it had been moved by 
John Edwards and seconded by Thomas Marshall, on the 
third day of the convention, and that Edwards had re- 
ported and read it to tlie convention on the fourth day, 
when it was amended, in order to defeat its passage. If 
Innes had, indeed, moved, prepared, reported and advocated 
this address, the fact would have demonstrated, that, in- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 269 

stead of having been a coadjutor and a conspirator with 
Wilkinson, Sebastian and Brown, he had been the leader 
of the opposition to their schemes; and would, in truth, 
have vindicated his patriotism and loyalty against attacks 
from any source. And had that been true, the course of 
the historian in omitting to give him the credit that was 
his due, and assigning it to Edwards and Thomas Mar- 
shall, would not simply have been unfair and uncandid, but 
would have spread its taint of deliberate falsehood to 
every statement in his book, and have stamped his own 
character as dishonorable and infamous. 

But, in thus boldly assailing the fairness and " historic 
veracity" of the historian. Colonel Brown should at least 
have been careful that his own statements conformed to 
the facts established by the very official report which he 
cited, and the contents of which he unquestionably knew 
and understood. That report proves, that Innes w^as not, 
in fact, the mover of the resolution, nor its advocate, and 
that he neither prepared nor reported the address.^ It 
shows that the resolution to prepare the address was 
moved by John Edw^ards, and was seconded by Thomas 
Marshall,* on the third day of the convention. The same 



*The following is the official report of the proceedings relating to this 
resolution on Wednesday, November 5th, the third day of the conven- 
tion, viz.: 

"Ordered, That the resolution for preparing an address tp the Assem- 
bly of Virginia be now read, . . then the same was read, amended 
and agreed to as follows, viz.: 

"Resolved, That a committee be appointed to draw up a decent and re- 
spectful address to the Assembly of Virginia for obtaining an independ- 
ence of the district of Kentucky, agreeble to the late resolution and re- 
commendation of Congress, and that they prepare and report the same 
to the convention to-morrow. And a committee was appointed of Mr. 
Edwards, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Muter, Mr. Jouitt, Mr. Allen, and Mr. 
Wilkinson." 

The naming of Edwards first on the committee, constituting him 
chairman thereof, shows that he offered the motion ; and the place of 
Marshall as second on the committee that he seconded it. Innes was 
not even on the committee, and had nothing to do with the resolution, 
except to try to defeat it. All the historians affirm the resolution to 
have been offered by Edwards and seconded by Marshall. The state- 



270 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

official report proves that the address itself was prepared 
by this committee, of which Innes was not a member, and 
was reported and read by its chairman, John Edwards, on 
the fourth day. So far from Innes having moved, pre- 
pared, reported, or advocated it, he was not only not a 
member of the committee that had the address in charge, 
but was one of those described by Littell as being " op- 
posed to it in toto." An amendment to the address was 
oftered in order to prevent action upon it, and then John 
Brown's resolution, of which Innes loas an advocate, was 
introduced, as explained by Littell, to defeat it alto- 
gether.* All this time Innes was an advocate and sup- 
porter of every measure designed to defeat the address 
to the assembly and the whole policy of applying to Vir- 
ginia. He was, in fact, one of those who were, as de- 
scribed by Littell on his own authority, opposed to the 
policy of that measure " in toto." On Saturday, the 
sixth day of the convention, after Brown's resolution had 
been defeated, the address to the assembly was referred 
to the committee of the whole, that it might there be 
still killed or crippled. It was not until the last day of 
the convention, when the conspirators knew they had 
failed ; that their eftbrts to corrupt the loyal heart of Ken- 
tucky had been futile; and when their Spanish-bought 
leader, Wilkinson, had been awed by the remonstrance 
which had been obtained and presented by Crockett ; — it 
was not until then, that the address to the assembly, which 
had been moved, drawn and reported and read by Ed- 
wards, was amended and adopted in the committee of the 



ment of Colouel Brown is without any authority, and originated in 
what he deemed the necessities of his case. 

'■In this false claim that Innes had moved, advocated, prepared and read 
that address to the assembly, the reader will detect the motive of 
Colonel Brown in eliminating from his account the statement of the 
official journal that the address was reported from the committee and 
was read by Edwards on the fourth day of the convention ; and for his 
assertion that, "Al this point "—immediately after the address to Con- 
gress was ordered to be prepared, — " and before the committees were 
readi/ with their reports," the manuscript journal notes, the resolution was 
called up by John Brown." 



The Spanish Conspiracij. 271 

whole, of which Innes was chairman for the time being. 
His purely perfunctory report, as chairman of that com- 
mittee of the whole, of the action of that committee in 
amending and adopting the address, which, as already 
stated, had been moved, prepared, reported, read and ad- 
vocated by Edwards, and resisted to the last by Innes, 
Wilkinson, Sebastian, Brown and all their followers, was all 
that Innes had to do with tliat address. Had Humphrey 
Marshall taken from the able and patriotic Edwards the 
credit that belonged to him, in order to confer it upon 
Innes, who had, in the July as well as in the November con- 
vention, vehemently resisted the whole policy which finally 
triumphed in the adoption of that address, it would have 
proved him as wholly unmindful of the claims of " his- 
toric veracity," as Colonel Brown has shown himself to 
have been. It is unnecessary that the reader shall pro- 
ceed to pass judgment upon Colonel Brown by the stand- 
ard he applied to Humphrey Marshall in his own mis- 
representation of the facts and of the record. His own 
judgment of his own performance may be read in his 
own unjust accusations against the fairness and candor 
of the historian. And if Innes can only be vindicated 
by so gross a misrepresentation of all the facts, his case 
is, indeed, as desperate as Colonel Brown evidently re- 
garded it Avhen he resorted to this line of defense. 

During the controversy of 1806, the villification to which 
the friends of Brown, Innes, Wilkinson, and Sebastian re- 
sorted, in default of facts and argument, drew from his 
family the publication of Colonel Marshall's letter to 
Washington. After that publication, John Brown, Innes, 
and Wallace made a weak attempt to break the force of 
the account given in that letter of the memorial of their 
friend Wilkinson, of John Brown's letter to Muter, and of 
his ambiguous allusion in the convention to his conference 
with Gardoqui, by alleging that Colonel Marshall's judg- 
ment at the time was warped by prejudice against them 
as the rivals and enemies of his family. They also claimed 
that he soon became convinced of the injustice of his sus- 
picions, and in a second letter to Washington had retracted 



272 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

what he liacl Written in the first. In the ninth chapter ot 
Littell it was alleged as the " true state of those transac- 
tions," that 

" Colonel Marshall considered General Wilkinson and Mr. Brown as 
the popular rivals and personal enemies of his family. He became sus- 
picious, and communicated his suspicions to the Executive of the United 
States. Upon better consideration and strict observation of the conduct 
of these gentlemen, he became convinced that his suspicions were not 
well founded, and that whatever ill-will they might have against him 
and his connections, they had none against the United States ; and with 
a magnanimity which all parties must approbate, informed the Execu- 
tive that the suspicions he once had against them no longer existed." 

In other places in that pamphlet substantially the same 
statement is repeated. There never was any political or 
other rivalry between either Wilkinson or Brown and 
Colonel Marshall, nor any political collision between them 
except in his successful efforts to counteract their schemes 
before the people, and to defeat their plots in the conven- 
tion. So far from cherishing any personal animosity 
against Wilkinson on account of the debate between the 
latter and Humphrey Marshall, in 1786, the nature of 
which has been stated, Colonel Marshall, a few months 
after, recommended him, in conjunction with Isaac Shelby 
and Colonel R. C. Anderson, as suitable persons to treat 
with the Indians, for which duty all three were well quali- 
fied. There had been, however, a personal altercation be- 
tween Wilkinson and Colonel Marshall, growing, as stated 
by a son of the latter, out of " persistent attempts of Wil- 
kinson to translate Colonel Marshall's property to him- 
self," and the latter's refusal to have any business transac- 
tion with a man who damaged every one who trusted him. 
But no one who will read Wilkinson's letters to Miro Avill 
contend for a moment that the statement affecting him or 
his memorial made by Colonel Marshall was in the least 
degree colored by prejudice. 

There had been a violent difference between Hary Innes 
and some of his connections and Humphrey Marshall, in 
1788, in which neither Colonel Marshall nor any other mem- 
ber of his family had any share or participation. Besides, the 
name of Innes was not even so much as mentioned, nor is 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 273 

there the most distant allusion to him, in Colonel Marshall's 
letter. There had been no political or other rivalry be- 
tween Brown and Colonel Marshall, or Humphrey Mar- 
shall, or any other member of that family. The fact is, 
that when those events were transpiring, Colonel Marshall 
had but two sons in Kentucky : Alexander Keith, who 
was but eighteen, and Louis, who was but fifteen years 
old when that letter was written. It appears from the 
letter of Muter, pubhshed in 1790, that James M. Marshall 
was not in the district when the letter of John Brown was 
received, and even if he had settled in Kentucky when 
the letter to Washington was written, he had not been 
here long enough to have had any political rivalry with 
any one. The race he made against John Brown for Con- 
gress did not take place until the summer of 1790, eighteen 
months after the date of the letter, which these men al- 
leged to have been the emanation of jealousy and per- 
sonal spleen. With these facts, the men who induced Lit- 
tell to publish the untruth, who paid him for writing the 
untruth, and who gave it circulation, were well acquainted. 
The facts were stated in Colonel Marshall's letter as they 
existed and without coloring. The conclusions drawn 
from the facts related were irresistible. The letter ought 
to have been written. The time of writing it was oppor- 
tune. It was seemly and right that the duty was per- 
formed by the man who accepted the responsibility. It 
was not written as a matter of gossip, but to make known 
the situation to one who had been chosen as the Chief 
Executive. And the names of the two men whose direct 
dealings with the Spaniards, and whose engagements to 
further the Spanish designs, were made apparent by their 
own writings and utterances, were alone mentioned. 

The claim that Colonel Marshall had, in his letter of 
September 11, 1790, retracted what he had written on the 
12th of February, 1789, was founded on a passage in 
Washington's repl}', which read as follows : 

" Philadelphia, 6 February, 1791. 
Sir: — In acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the 11th of Septem- 
ber, I must beg you to accept my thanks for the pleasing communication it 

18 



274 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

contains of the good disposition of the people of Kentucky towards the 
government of the United States. 

I never doubted that the operations of this government, if not per- 
verted by prejudice or evildesigns, would inspire the citizens of America 
with such confidence in it, as efiectually to do away those apprehen- 
sions, which, under the former confederation, our best men entertained 
of divisions among ourselves, or allurements from other nations. I am 
therefore happy to find, that such a disposition prevails in your part of 
the country, as to remove any idea of that evil, which a few years ago 
you so much dreaded." [Sparks Life and Writings of Washington, Vol.. 
X, page 137.] 

General Washington's mention of the " pleasing commu- 
nication " contained in Colonel Marshall's letter of Septem- 
ber 11, 1790, " of the good disposition of the j^^ople of Ken- 
tucky," was deceitfully construed by Brown, Innes, and 
Wallace as evidence that Colonel Marshall had, in the let- 
ter to which AVashingtou's was a reply, either retracted 
his statement of facts in regard to the memorial of WW- 
kinson and the letter and speech of Brown, and admitted 
himself to have been a falsifier ; or else that he had stulti- 
fied himself by writing that the irresistible conclusions he 
had expressed were unwarranted by those facts ; — for the 
claim that he had retracted meant nothing if it did not 
mean one or the other. But that Colonel Marshall's state- 
ment of the good disposition of the people of Kentucky, in 
1790, did not warrant the inference that he had retracted 
what he had written concerning the memorial, letters,, 
speeches and actions of Brown and Wilkinson, in 1788, i& 
too patent for argument. That it was altogether a false 
and absurd inference was well known by the men who 
used it as a screen. 

Brown, Innes, and Wallace all knew that this let- 
ter of Colonel Marshall of the 11th of September, 1790, 
which they claimed to have been a retraction, was written 
immediately after the election in which John Brown and 
Colonel Marshall's son, James M. Marshall, were the op- 
posing candidates for Congress ; that James M. Marshall,. 
whose judgment was naturally influenced by the opinion ot 
one of his father's strong mind and character, had in that 
canvass openly charged that John Brown and Wilkinson 
had been engaged in a treasonable conspiracy to separate 



The Spanish Co?}spiracy. 275 

Kentucky from tlie Uuioii and to form an alliance with 
Spain ; and that he had been on the point of fighting a 
duel with James Brown, because, when he stated the con- 
tents of John Brown's letter to Muter as the basis of the 
charge, James Brown had denied that such a letter had 
been written and had imputed to him a disregard of truth. 
They knew that the one thing in the world more im- 
probable than that James M. Marshall had made those 
charges after his honored father had changed his opinion 
and confessed his error, was, that, immediately after such 
a charge had been made by his son in public, under the 
influence of his own boldly expressed opinions, Colonel 
Marshall should have written a private letter to Washing- 
ton retracting his own previous statements and acknowl- 
edging himself to have been mistaken ! The absurdity of 
the claim must have diverted the men in whose behalf it 
was made. For they knew that at the time Colonel Mar- 
shall wrote the letter of February 12, 1789, which they 
claimed was dictated by a spirit of animosity towards 
Brown and Wilkinson as the political rivals of his family, 
there had never been such a rivalry. The}'- knew, too, that 
the letter, w^hich they asserted was one of retraction and 
admission of previous injustice, was written w^ithin a few 
weeks after that rivalry had commenced. These men 
knew from the contempt which Colonel Marshall took no 
pains to conceal, and from his bearing toward them during 
all the remainder of his life, that the opinions he had 
avowed to their faces much more explicitly than they were 
stated in his guarded letter to Washington, had undergone 
neither change nor modification ; and every fact demon- 
strates their positive knowledge, that in all they caused to 
be written and published on the subject there was not one 
word of truth. 

Following closely in the footprints of his grandfather, 
as they appear in Littell, Colonel John Mason Brown as- 
serts in the "Political Beginnings" that: 

" It M'as but a short time before Thomas Marshall very clearly saw 
how unjust were his suspicions, and he very honorably repaired what- 
ever injury his letter of I'ith of February might have done. He soon 



276 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

became convinced that he had wronged both Brown and Innes, and on 
the 11th of September, 1790, wrote to Washington assuring him of the 
entire absence of sedition or appearance of it, and of the ' good disposi- 
tion of the people of Kentucky toward the government of the United 
States.'"* 

Here is a distinct statement by Colonel Brown that 
Colonel Marshall in a short time saw the injustice he had 
done to John Brown and Hary Innes in his letter to 
"Washington, of February 12, 1789 (in which he knew per- 
fectly well that there was not the slightest allusion to 
Innes); and that in his letter of 11th of September, 1790, 
he had repaired the injustice — of course by a withdrawal. 
In a note at the bottom of the page on which this was 
written in the " Political Beginnings " (page 211) Colonel 
Brown cites his readers to page 520 of the Appendix to 
Butler's History of Kentucky, edition of 1836, for Col- 
onel Marshall's letter of February 12, 1789; and on page 
208 he quotes the conclusion of that letter which is 
printed on page 522 of the same book, to which he refers. 
On the very next page, (523) of that book, of that edition, 
and in the same leaf which contained the part of the first 
letter quoted by Colonel Brown, appeared Colonel Mar- 
shall's second letter to Washington — the letter of Septem- 
ber 11, 1790— the letter which Colonel Brown's grand- 
father and Colonel Brown himself affirm was a letter of 
retraction, — a letter in which they allege he very honor- 
ably repaired the previous injustice he had done by accu- 
rately describing the contents of Brown's letter to ]Muter 
and relating BroAvn's ambiguous and shirking words in 
the convention ! This letter was printed in the very book 
used by Colonel Brown. Whether he had read and knew 
its contents, and well comprehended their purport, when he 
coolly and deliberately wrote the description of it which 
appears in the "Political Beginnings," the reader can con- 
clude for himself. His grandfather and Haiy Innes did 
not have the letter itself before them, but disingenuously 
drew from AVashington's reply what they knew to be a 
false implication and a forced and absurd inference. But 



Political Beginnings, page 211. 



The Spanish Conspiracy/. 277 

in the very book which Colonel Brown used and studied, 
and on the next page to the page, and on the same leaf, that 
contained the extract which he quoted from the letter of 
February 12, 1789, is also published the alleged letter of 
retraction of September 11, 1790. Colonel Brown did not 
refer his readers to Butler for the second letter. He did 
not let them know that it had been obtained from Dr. 
Jared Sparks and had been published by Butler on page 
523 of that edition of his History (1836). That fact, as 
well as the letter itself, he suppressed. Was or was not 
the reason he did this because that letter on its own face 
shows that all that his grandfather, and Innes and Wal- 
lace procured to be written and published concerning 
that letter, and all that he himself wrote in regard to it, 
was untrue. The letter is reproduced exactly as it appears 
in Butler, exactly as Colonel Brown, if he was not the 
most careless reader in the world, and unless all appear- 
ances deceive, — read, knew and understood its contents, 
viz : 

Woodford County, September 11, 1790. 

;S7/-; — I have taken the Hberty to inclose you a Kentucky paper 
wherein is pubHshed an extract from one of Mr. Brown's letters re- 
specting the Spanish business. My reason for doing this is, that you 
may judge how far it confirms a representation I formerly had the 
honor to make you on that subject. The part I then publicly took in 
this affair has entirely excluded me from any knowledge of his subse- 
quent communications to his confidential friends. 

You will discover by the paper I send you to what lengths matters 
have been carried. Every thing relative to this matter on the part of 
Mr. Brown, has, by his friends and coadjutors, been denied or con- 
cealed, which has produced a necessity for the inclosed publication. I 
shall only take the liberty of adding that a great majority of the people 
of this district appear to be well disposed to the government of the 
United States, though they have, through the influence and industry of 
his confidential friends, again elected Mr. Brown to Congress ; and that 
our official and influential characters having taken the oath to support 
the general government, together with the position the Continental 
troops have taken, in my opinion, leaves us little to fear at present from 
the machinations of any Spanish party. 

That God may bless and preserve you, and that the United States 
may long continue to enjoy the happiness of your government and pro- 
tection, is the most fervent prayer of one who has the honor to be, 



278 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Avith the most respectful esteem and sincerity, your most obedient and 
very humble servant, 

T. Marshall. 
T. IMarsluill to General Washington. 

, The reader, at a glance, will see that, in this letter. Col- 
onel Marshall inclosed to Washington the extract from 
John Brown's letter to Muter, which James M. Marshall 
had ohtained and published a few days before in the Lex- 
ington Gazette, — as a p>roof of the correctness with which 
he had described its contents in the letter of February 12, 
1789, That to him "a (jreat majoritij of the people'"' of 
Kentucky appeared to be "well disposed" toward the 
government, — notivithstandiri(j they had just elected a man 
concerning whoso conduct his opinions had undergone no 
change ; but who had, by denials, conceahnents, eva- 
sions, and subterfuges, paltry and pitiful ec^uivocation 
to sly treachery, incurred his unutterable contempt; a 
coiitem[)t, it may be remarked, which was openly ex- 
pressed by those who had opposed John Brown's schemes, 
and which was scarcely concealed by the indifferent, while 
that secretly entertained by his coadjutors was communi- 
cated by Wilkinson to Miro, and its record placed among 
the Spanish archives; — a contempt, it must be added, 
which no one ever feels for the man who, however wrong- 
ful his cause may be, boldly avows it in the face of the 
world, and, putting fortune and life to the hazard, and 
throwing himself, sword in hand, into the imminent 
breach, courageously stands b}' it to the bitter end. The 
letter which is claimed to be a retraction is a reiteration 
of the first. 

Colonel Brown might also have read in the same Appen- 
dix to Butlei' a third letter from Colonel Marshall to 
Washington, in which he indicated that, in 1792, he was 
as far from making a retraction as lie had been in 1790. 
The letter is as follows, viz : 

September 7th, 1792. 

Sir: — I take the liberty of writing by Captain O'Bannon, and in a few 
words mean to give you the names and rank of the gentlemen who are 
most likely to influence government and give a tone to the politics of 
this State. Isaac Shelby, Esq., Governor; Harry Innes, Esq. (present 
Judge of the Federal Court), first Judge of the High Court of Appeals; 



The Spanish Consinracy . 279 

John Brown, Esq., Senator to Congress; James Brown, Esq., Secretary; 
George Nicholas, Esq., Attorney General for the State ; and almost every 
post of power or profit in the State is filled by their friends and adher- 
ents. From this you may judge of my situation, who have formerly 
oftended some of them, and can never make concessions without vio- 
lating my own conscience. It is true, I want nothing which they have 
to bestow ; yet they can by misrepresentation vex me, by rendering me 
obnoxious to the people. 

Colonel Muter, who can never be forgiven for suffering the publica- 
tion of Mr. Brown's letter, has pretty severely felt the rod of power. 
He has been, by the choice of the Assembly of Virginia, for seven years 
past first Judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Kentucky, with 
a salary of £300 per annum, and is, without any fault alleged against 
him, turned down to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, where the salary, 
it is thought, will be very trifling,— for the salary of the judges is not 
yet fixed. 

I have received a letter from Colonel Richard C. Anderson, request- 
ing my recommendation of him to fill the office of Commissioner of 
Loans, if such an ofiice should be necessary in this State. To recom- 
mend a gentleman to fill any office is a liberty I have never yet taken, 
nor do I think myself by any means authorized to do so ; but as I have 
had a long acquaintance with Colonel Anderson, both in the Army and 
since it was discharged, and have the highest opinion of his merit as an 
officer and a gentleman, I hope you will pardon me for being the means 
of his wishes having come to your knowledge. 

I have the honor to be, with the most cordial wishes for a long con- 
tinuance of your health and prosperity, Sir, your most obedient humble 
servant, T. Marshall. 

T. INIarshall to General Washington. 

He never did make the sliglitest coucession to any of 
them, and, on their part, they never ceased to hate and to 
villify the man whose actions proved that he understood 
them, and who had the courage to speak and write the in- 
convenient truth, as well as the patriotism to do his duty. 
After having discharged that duty he indulged in no bick- 
erings with the men he had, with Muter, and the aid of, 
Anderson, Allen, Crockett and Edwards, so signally and 
completely thwarted. 

The most charitable reader will agree that this deflec- 
tion hy Colonel Brown would be most remarkable in any 
other author and if occurring in any other book. He 
must admit, however, that it is but typical of the charac- 
teristics which distinguish the "Political Beginnings" 
from every other alleged historical narrative than ever 



280 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

was written. Every reader must supply his own comment. 
The writer deems the incident of importance only so far 
as the devices resorted to by John Brown himself, as well 
as by his grandson, to suppress what Colonel Marshall had 
written and to make it appear that whatever he had so 
written he had himself retracted, exhibit the value they 
set upon his testimony as that of a witness who was 
known to be as careful as he was observant and shrewd, 
of a clear and strong mind, and of integrity as unim- 
peached as it was unimpeachable. 

A man of respectable talents and better educated than 
most of his contemporaries, John Brown was amply com- 
petent to defend his own reputation in any matter that 
was defensible. That he did not think the charges made 
against him nn worthy of notice is apparent from his pay- 
ing Littell to write in his defense, and from the various 
subterfuges, evasions, suppressions and flagrant misstate- 
ments which every-where appear in the pamphlet for 
which he was morally responsible. That his family and 
kindred had reason to regard the imputations upon his 
honor and patriotism as most serious and damaging, is ex- 
hibited by the resurrection of those old controversies more 
than three quarters of a century after they were waged. 
Every reader will deem it of strange significance, that, 
while he was thus assailed and denounced, publicly, from 
the rostrum and in the press, with specification and proof 
adduced to support charges broadly and fiercely made, in 
the very community in which he lived, John Brown, thus 
competent, and thus smarting under the lash, never pub- 
licly uttered one word, nor wrote a line over his own sig- 
nature, in his own vindication. His grandson' was pain- 
fully impressed with the terrible force of the conclusion 
which will naturally be drawn from this silence — most 
strange and unaccountable on any presumption of his con- 
sciousness of his own innocence. Iguoring this pregnant 
fact, but feeling its overwhelming weight, to neutralize its 
logical eftect, Colonel Brown tries to make it appear, that 
his grandfather did, before the committee charged with the 
investigation of Sebastian, repel the charges against him- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 281 

self under the sanctity of his oath. He says that : " It 
was not till 1806 that Brown had opportunity before the 
legislature (?) of Kentucky, when Sebastian was under im- 
peachment (?) to testify under oath and repel the charge 
and explain his actions and his motives. From his MS. 
memoranda of his testimony so delivered his version can 
be briefly stated." * On another page, still referring to 
Brown's testimony before that committee he says: "And 
the explanation of Brown and his asseverations of the 
correctness of his motive and his action were given under 
the sanction of his oath." Colonel Brown gives the fol- 
lowing as his grandfather's alleged manuscript memoranda 
of his testimony before the committee : 

" The fact is," said Brown, "that from 178o, when the first convention 
met at Danville, on the subject of a separation from the State of Vir- 
ginia, till 1792, when Kentucky was admitted into the Union as a sepa- 
rate state, no motion was at any time made, either in convention or to 
the people, to separate from the Union and form an alliance with Spain ; 
nor was any measure to that efl'ect discussed or advocated by any man. 
The proposition of Mr. Gardoqui originated with himself, and was sug- 
gested by him in conversation on the subject of his negotiation with Mr. 
Jay, and was communicated by me to Colonel Muter and Colonel Mc- 
Dowell, Judges of the Supreme Court, in reply to letters from them re- 
questing whatever information! might obtain relative to that negotia- 
tion. At the date of my letter to Muter I intended to write letters to 
the same jjurport to other friends who corresponded with me, but, upon 
reflection, and more especially after an interesting conversation with a 
highly distinguished statesman of Virginia relative to Gardoqui's project, 
I deemed it inexpedient to make any further communication on the 
subject, the public mind of Kentucky being in a high state of excite- 
ment in consequence of the rejection of the application to be admitted 
into the Union as an independent state." 

Waiving all discussion as to whether this "repels" any 
charge made against him ; waiving also the question of its 
consistency with the terms of his letter to Muter, and of 
his own account, as given in the Littell pamphlet, of his 
course in the Danville convention of November, 1788 ; the 
fact remains that the oflicial report of his testimony be- 
fore that committee, to which he himself signed his name 
with his own hand, shows that he gave no such testimony 



Political Beginnings," page 158. Ihkl, page 104. 



282 The Spanish Consjnracy. 

before that committee, and fully establishes the inaccu- 
racy and utter disingenuousness of his alleged manuscript 
memoranda of that testimony; even if, indeed, it be true 
that he left any manuscript purporting to be such memo- 
randa. Were the natural inquiry made, why Coloiiel 
Brown published the alleged memoranda instead of the 
testimony itself, which was in his possession, the easy an- 
swer is, that it was because the latter did not suit his pur- 
pose, the testimony not containing one woi'd of the pre- 
tended memoranda thereof, and relating entirely to matters 
which occurred seven years subsequent to the events 
treated in the memoranda. One reading both and com- 
paring them with each other will see, that, wdiile the tes- 
timony relates exclusively to John Brown's knowledge of 
the " business upon which, it was said, Mr. Sebastian went 
to ISTew Orleans in the years 1795-6, or relative to his hav- 
ing received a pension from the Government of Spain," 
as to the date when Brown iirst became acquainted with 
the fact that Sebastian was a Spanish pensioner, etc., — 
the memoranda, on the other hand, makes no reference to 
any of these matters, but refers to John Brown's own con- 
ference with Gardoqui in 1788, his letters to Muter and 
McDowell in the same year, and his motives for not making 
a public revelation of the overture of Gardoqui ; — which 
overture he himself induced Littell to publish that he had 
actually disclosed in the N'ovember convention.* Leav- 



*The following is the entire evidence of John Brown before the com- 
mittee referred to, as given in the official report of that committee, and 
published by J. M. Street & Co., 1806 : 

" John Brown deposeth and saith, that he has no personal knowledge 
of the business upon wdiich it is said Mr. Sebastian w'ent to New Or- 
leans in the years 1795-6, or relative to his having at any time received 
a pension from the Government of Spain ; that Mr. Sebastian never 
made to him any communication whatever, on those subjects; nor did 
he ever receive any information respecting them from any quarter, 
until he read certain publications which appeared in the Wedevn World 
since the 4th of July last ; that in, or about, the month of August last, 
Mr. Innes did make a communication to this deponent relative to the 
business in which he said Mr. Sebastian had gone to New Orleans ; and 
also stated some information which he said had been given to him by 
Charles Wilkins relative to said pension ; but as the communications 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 283 

ing the question whether John Brown left memoranda in 
wliich he gave, a pretended account of his testimony before 
that committee, which his own signature to his deposition 
proves he never did give, to be adjusted between the 
grandfather and the grandson ; and turning from this spec- 
tacle and all the painful reflections to which it gives rise, 
the reader will be seriously impressed by the fact, that 
Jolm BroAvn so utterly failed to defend himself in any 
public speech or writing. In his testimony before the 
legislative committee which investigated the charges 
against Sebastian, his deposition shows that he made no 
reference to the charges brought against himself, which 
charges related to the transactions of 1788. For reasons 
which were deemed sufficient, he was not made a witness 
in the suit of Innes against Street. In the suit ot Inncsv. 
Marshall his loyalty and integrity were impugned by the 
questions of the defendant, and seriously impeached by 
the replies of witnesses ; the most damaging assaults made 
upon Innes were the proofs of his intimacy with the 
writer of the letter to Muter ; — with the man who had the 
conference with Gardoqui, and made in the November 



then made to this deponent are, as he believes, substantially contained 
in the testimony delivered by Mr. Innes to this committee, he deems it 
unnecessary to state them ; that he heard Mr. Sebastian had been in 
Philadelphia on his return from New Orleans in 1796; but he did not 
call on this deponent, then attending Congress in that city ; and he has 
been informed that he did not call on any of the then members of the 
Kentucky delegation at that place ; that some time after Mr. Genet ar- 
rived at Philadelphia, and during the continuance of the war between 
France and Spain, he informed this deponent that he had it in contem- 
plation to raise an army to consist of recruits from Kentucky, Tennes- 
see, the Creek and other Indian tribes, for the conquest of Louisiana in 
behalf of France. 

Shortly after he understood from one of the heads of departments 
that he was apprised of the i^roject of Genet; that he was absent from 
Kentucky from the autumn of 1792, till about August, 1795 ; and, there- 
fore, has no personal knowledge of the progress of any agent of Genet 
in issuing commissions or enlisting men ; but during that time he re- 
ceived letters from Kentucky containing information on that subject, 
and without delay gave extracts from them to the then Secretary of 
State, for the information of the President of the United States. 

December 1, 1806. J. Brown." 



284 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

convention the equivocal response to the request for in- 
formation. Every consideration which could appeal to- 
one's pride, to one's self respect, to regard for one's own 
reputation with future generations, and to the sincerity of 
his friendship for Innes, demanded that he should go 
upon the witness stand, and there defend his friend by 
vindicating himself, if he were innocent, from the charges 
published by Marshall in the newspapers, recorded by 
him on the "during marble of history," and which were 
spread by the man whom he hated, even as he feared 
him, upon the records of the courts. Yet he was never 
summoned, he did not volunteer, and not one public word 
did he utter. This silence, which would have been inex- 
plicable in a man who was conscious of his own innocence, 
that the charges against him were calumnious and could 
be so shown to be by making known the truth, is suscep- 
tible of but one logical explanation ; — that to have been 
subjected to a cross-examination would have reduced him 
to an election between two alternatives, — one of which 
was a confession ; and from the other, what he had of con- 
science made him shrink. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 285 



CHAPTER XYIL 

The Aechives of Spain, France and England all Testify to thk 
Existence op the Spanish Conspiracy — Evidence of General 
St. Clair— Views of Washington — Wilkinson and Brown alone 
Named by Colonel Marshall, who did not Mention Innes in. 
His Letter of February 12, 1789 — Fallacies Resorted to by 
Brown, Innes and Wallace in their Own Defense — Wilkin- 
son's Interpretation of the Appointment of Innes — Opinions of 
AVashington and Hamilton of Wilki:<son — Out of the Army 
He was Dangerous — Policy Dictated that it should be made 
His Interest to be Loyal. 

The movement to separate Kentucky from the United 
States and either to subject lier people to, or phice them 
under, the protection of Spain, was made known to the 
French minister to the United States, and was by him 
communicated to his court. Similar intelHgence was con- 
veyed to Lord Dorchester, then the governor of Canada, 
who promptly forwarded it to the Court of St. James. 
The details are even now among the Spanish archives in 
Madrid. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the evidence 
from various sources which unerringly demonstrates, that 
the construction placed upon the memorial and utterances 
of Wilkinson, upon the letters and speech of John Brown, 
as well as upon the actions of their associates, by Colonel 
Marshall, which was also placed upon them by Allen, 
French, Muter, Crockett and others, at the time, was not 
the result of prejudice, but was eminently just. What- 
ever may have been the detestation felt by Humphrey 
Marshall for these men on personal grounds, the interpre- 
tation he placed upon their conduct in his History, in 
after years, was fully sustained by the proof; was but the 
repetition of official dispatches to three European powers, 
and of the views expressed in regard to them by well in- 
formed and unbiased men at the time those events occurred. 
Out of the abundance of proof which establishes that the 



286 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

opinions of important contemporaries confirmed those 
afterwards expressed by the historian, the testimony ob- 
tained from the letters of the gallant General St. Clair is 
produced. Under date of December 5, 1788, St. Clair, 
who was then governor of the ^N'orth-Western Territory, 
wrote to Major Isaac Dunn, — Wilkinson's partner and 
confederate : 

" Dear Dunn : — I am much grieved to hear that there are strong dis- 
positions on the part of tlie people of Kentucky to break off their con- 
nection with the United States, and that our friend Wilkinson is at the 
liead of this affair. Such a consummation would involve the United 
States in the greatest difficulties, and would completely ruin this coun- 
try. Should there be any foundation for these reports, for God's sake, 
make use of your influence to detach Wilkinson from that party." * 

This letter was sent by Dunn to Wilkinson, and a copy 
thereof was forwarded by Wilkinson to Miro, as " the 
proof that the part which I play in our great enterprise, 
and the dangers to which T am exposed for the service of 
his Catholic Majesty, are known." (3n the 13th of De- 
cember, 1788, St. Clair wrote to John Jay, that, " it is 
certain that, in the last convention, a proposal was made 
that the district of Kentucky should set up for itself, not 
only independent of Virginia, but of the United States 
also, and was rejected by a small majority only." This 
was the construction given at the time to the intended 
efiect of the resolution of John Brown. Had the reso- 
lution and address offered by Edwards been defeated, and 
had that of John Brown and the policy to which its 
author was committed by his assurances to Gardoqui pre- 
vailed, then the result would have followed from which, 
according to St. Clair, so narrow an escape was made. 

The most forcible argument used in the Littell pam- 
phlet, and which is dutifully repeated by Colonel Brown, 
is founded on the alleged confidence reposed in these men 
by the illustrious Washington ; — from which, they eon- 
tend, it results that the Sage of Mt. Vernon discovered no 
criminality in the memorials, letters, speeches, acts and 
movements which were communicated to him by Colonel 
Marshall; — and, conceding he credited Colonel Marshall's 

* Gayarre, page 240. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 287 

statement of facts, that lie altogether rejected Colonel 
Marshall's conclusions, or that any unfavorable impression 
he may for a time have had was speedily removed by 
Colonel Marshall's own retraction. That General Wash- 
ington was " greatly alarmed at the nature of the transac- 
tions mentioned " in Colonel Marshall's letter of Febru- 
ary 12, 1789, is clear from his own response. But, say the 
champions of the conspirators, in the face of that letter, 
General Washington in a few months thereafter appointed 
Hary Innes, Judge of the District Court for Kentucky. 
It happened, however, that Colonel Marshall had made no 
charge against Innes, nor so much as mentioned his name 
in the letter referred to ; — a fact of which Judge Innes, 
himself, Brown, and Wallace were fully aware when 
they caused this disingenuous defense to be made ; for the 
letter itself had been published before the Littell pamphlet 
was written. The moderation and circumspection with 
which that letter dealt with Wilkinson and Brown (whom 
alone it designated), concisely stating the facts of their 
dealings with the Spaniards as they appeared from their 
own writings and declarations, and very briefly giving his 
own just conclusions therefrom, can not fail to attract the 
attention of the reader. Whatever he may have thought 
of Innes as their friend and confederate, Colonel Mar- 
shall's opinions concerning him were not stated in that nor 
in any other letter he ever wrote to Washington. * As 
the superintendent of mines during the revolution, in 
which capacity his services had been valuable, Innes had 
been known, by reputation at least, to Washington. His 
elder brother. Dr. Robert Innes, a surgeon in the revolu- 
tion and a man of high character, had married the daugh- 
ter of Washington's intimate friend and near kinsman, 
the elder Warner Lewis, of Warner Hall. His younger 
brother, James Innes, whose talents were as brilliant as 



*The letter of September 7, 1792, mentions Innes among the ap- 
pointees of Shelby, " some of whom " he had " formerly offended." It 
does not specify Innes as one of those he had offended, nor make any 
charge against him. That letter was written three years after Innes 
was appointed by Washington. 



288 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

his body was immense, bad been the brave colonel of a 
Virginia regiment, and had but recently rendered invalu- 
able service in the Virginia convention by advocating the 
ratification of the constitution, Avhich gave scope for and 
an incentive to an eloquence, which in its magnificance 
was scarcely surpassed by that of the gifted Henry. The 
family was in the highest degree reputable. Hary Innes 
himself was a man of good private morals and of respect- 
able legal attainments, and had for years been identified 
with and prominent in the afiiairs of the district. With- 
out information from Colonel Marshall, or, so far as 
known, from any one else, of his implication wnth Wilkin- 
son, there were but few men in the district, to whom Wash- 
ington would more naturally .have looked as a suitable 
person for the position than the one he appointed ; and 
the others did not desire the place. * 

Much stress has also been placed upon the circumstance, 
that, in 1791, Washington appointed Innes and Brown, in 
conjunction with Isaac Shelby, General Charles Scott and 
Benjamin Logan, commissioners to organize the militia of 
the district for an oftensive movement against tlie Indians 



"■■■ The construction placed by Wilkinson upon Washington's motive 
in making this appointment appears in his letter to Miro, of January 26, 
1790. As it is amusing as well as instructive, the passage is here quoted 
from Gayarre, page 278, viz : 

" On my arrival here, I discovered a great change in those who had 
been so far our warmest friends. Many, who loudly repudiated all con- 
nection with the Union, now remain silent. I attribute this, either to 
the hope of promotion or to the fear of punishment. According to my 
prognostic, Washington has begun to operate on the chief heads of this 
district. Innes has been appointed a federal judge with an annual sal- 
ary of one thousand dollars ; George Nicholas, district attorney ; Samuel 
McDowell, son of the president of the convention, and Marshall, have 
been appointed to offices somewhat resembling that of Alguazil Mayor ; 
and Payton Short, the brother of our charge d'affaires at Versailles, is 
made a custom-house officer. But he has resigned, and probably will 
visit you in the spring. I do not place much reliance on George Nicho- 
las and Samuel McDowell. But I know that Harry Innes is friendly to 
Spain and hostile to Congress, and I am authorized to say that he would much 
prefer receiving a pension from New Orleans than from New York. Should 
the king approve our design on this point, it will have to be broached 
with much delicacy, caution and judgment," etc. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 289 

of the North-west. But, at this time, he had been in- 
formed by the letter of Marshall of the " good disposition 
of the great majority of the people of Kentucky " towards 
the general government, and that little was then to be ap- 
prehended from the " machinations of the Spanish party." 
Brown was the Congressman from the district ; he had 
been activ^e in urging the measure ; and he was capable of 
being useful in the organization of the expedition. The 
eminently wise and practical Washington was anxiously 
laboring to conciliate all the factions and make it their 
interest to support the new government ; and, safely sand- 
wiched between Scott, Shelby and old Ben. Logan, there 
was not a particle of danger that Brown or any one else 
could turn over to the Spaniards the force raised for ser- 
vice against the red men, even had he desired to do so 
never so earnestly. It will be seen there were abundant 
reasons for giving Brown the place he sought without at- 
tributing it to the slightest confidence reposed in him by 
Washington. 

Then Wilkinson was appointed to a Lieutenant Col- 
onelcy by Washington in the fall of 1791, and by success- 
ive promotions reached the head of the army ; and it is 
stoutly asserted that he could never have received this 
appointment had a vestige of the suspicion engendered by 
Colonel Marshall's letter remained upon the mind of the 
President. That Wilkinson was as guilty and as base as 
Colonel Marshall believed him to have been, as unscrupu- 
lous a traitor and as false and corrupt a scoundrel as 
Humphrey Marshall, or Clark, or Power, or Adair, or 
Randolph ever charged him with having been, no one 
who reads his letters to Miro and Gardoqui can for one 
moment doubt. But that does not aifect the question of 
what Washington thought of him at the time. However, 
from the correspondence between Alexander Hamilton 
and Washington a few years later, on the subject of Wil- 
kinson's promotion, may be gathered their appreciative 
knowledge of his character, their suspicions of his treach- 
ery in this very Spanish business, and the principles upon 
which Washington sometimes felt compelled to act in 
19 



290 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

dealing witli men like Brown and Wilkinson. Unwel- 
come as the revelation may be to those who fail to realize 
the embarrassments nnder which the clear sighted, pure 
and patriotic sometimes thought it prudent to seem to 
trust the deceitful and treacherous, it nevertheless eft'ectu- 
ally disposes of all this flimsy superstructure built upon a 
quicksand : 

The insolence and continued outrages of the French 
Revolutionary government, compelled President John 
Adams, in 1799, to prepare for war. Congress authorized 
the enlistment often thousand men as a provisional army. 
General Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief 
and Alexander Hamilton, Inspector General, to be second 
in command to Washington. These two able men wci-e 
busily occupied in the details of recruiting and organizing 
the new army. While those labors were in progress, 
Hamilton, under date of June 15, 1799, wrote to Wash- 
ington a letter from which the following is an extract, viz : 

" I liave just received a letter from General Wilkinson, dated the loth 
of Api'il, in which lie assures me that he will set out in the ensuing 
month for the seat of government. The interview with him will be 
useful. It strikes nie forcibly, that it will be both right and expedient 
to advance this gentleman to the grade of a Major General. He has 
been long steadily in service, and long a Brigadier. This, in so consid- 
erable an extension of the military establishment, gives him a preten- 
sion to promotion. I am aware that some doubts have been entertained of 
him, and that his character, on certain sides, gives room for doubts. Yet he is 
a,t present in the service ; is a man of more than ordinary talent, cour- 
age and enterprise ; has discovered upon various occasions a good zeal ; 
has embraced military pursuits as a profession., and vnll naturally find his in- 
terest as an ambitious man, in deserving the favor of the government, while 
he will be apt to be become disgusted if neglected, and through disgust may 
be rendered really what lie is now only suspected to be. Under such cir- 
cumstances it seems to me good policy to avoid all just ground of dis- 
content, and to make it the interest of the individual to practice his duty. If 
you should be also of this opinion, I submit to your consideration 
whether it would not be advisable to express it in a private letter to the 
Secretary of War." 

From Washington's answer to this letter the following 
extract is taken : 

"I think, with you, that policy dictates the expediency of promoting Brigadier 
Wilkinson to the rank of Major General, and will suggest the measure to the 
Secretart/ of War in a private communication. It tuould feed his ambition, 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 291 

soothe his vanity, and, by arresting discontent, produce the good effect, you con- 
template." * 

It is mortifying to reflect that the same views of policy 
have, ill this and in all other countries, in all ages, fre- 
quently influenced the greatest and best men who have 
been charged with the conduct of public aflairs. But, 
whatever may be thought of the wisdom of thus promot- 
ing a man known to be untrustworthy and treacherous, in 
order to buy his fidelity, there can be no question that, in 
point of fact, Washington had no confidence in the integ- 
rity of Wilkinson, and that his appointment by Washing- 
ton to a command in the array did not prove either that the 
latter discredited the statements of facts or the conclusions 
of Colonel Marshall, or that he did not esteem the con- 
duct of Wilkinson and Brown as highly culpable. Wilk- 
inson himself was aware that he was distrusted by Wash- 
ington, and was closely watched by the able, gallant and 
loyal Wayne. 



* Sparks, Vol. XI, page 438-40. 



292 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XYin. 

British Intrigues in Ki-:nti;cky — Madison's Lettek to Jefferson 
Shows British Partisans to Have Been at Work Prior to Its 
Date in the Spring of 1787 — Their Approach to Wilkinson 
Proved by His Memorial and His Letter to Gardoqui — The 
Spanish Minister has Information of British Intrigues Prior to 
July, 1788 — The Editor of the Western World has Information 
OF Wilkinson's Intrigue with the British and Mentions W'il- 
kinson's Report — Dorchester's Dispatch — It Refers Unmistak- 
ably to the Spanish Conspirators as Ready to Unite with 
Britain — The "Desultory Reflexions of a Gentleman of Ken- 
tucky " Really the " Report " of AVilkinson Mentioned by the 
Western World— Similarity of its Language to that of Wilkin- 
son's Letters to Miko — The Visit of Connolly to Colonel Mar- 
shall — He Meets with a Cool Reception — More of Colonel 
Brown's Suppressions — More of His Inventions — Transfers the 
" Reflexions" from a Known Traitor to a Tried Patriot — Vindi- 
cates the Law of Heredity — Misrepresents A. K. Marshall's 
Communication — That Communication Refutes his Statement — 
The Pyramid He Erected and the Foundation He Laid — Credit 
Given Him for One Cohrect Statement. 

All cireuiustances combine to prove, that, from a time 
commencing soon aftcM- the close of the Revolntion, there 
were in Kentucky, in Tennessee, and in otlier sections of 
the West, emissaries of Great Britain, who used exertions 
to disatfect the people towards the Congress and the East, 
to the end that there might be brought about a separa- 
tion of the West from the United States. The letter of 
Thomas Green to the Governor of Georgia, and the cir- 
cular distributed throughout the West, in December, 
1786, and which stated that, " Great Britain stands ready 
with open arms to receive and support us. They have al- 
ready offered to o\)en their resources for our supplies:" 
are links in the chain of evidence by which the fact is es- 
tablished. In corroboration of the statement in this cir- 
cular, Mr. Madison wrote to Jefferson, on the 19th of 
March, 1787: "It is hinted to me that British partisans 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 293 

are already feeling the pulse of some of the western set- 
tlements ;" and the " measures for uniting their consulta- 
tions " in the West, of which Mr. Madison had informa- 
tion, and some of the developments of which may be read 
in the circular letter from Western Pennsylvania, and in 
the call of March 19, 1787, seem much like a movement 
in the direction of what Mr. Madison anticipated as the 
ultimate result of those measures. Wilkinson also, in 
his memorial to the Intendant of Louisiana, asserted that, 
if Spain was so blind to her own interest as to reject 
the proposition made to her by a people whom he de- 
scribed as on the point of separating from the Union 
forever, " Great Britain stands ready, with her arms ex- 
panded, willing to receive and co-operate with them in 
their desire to open the navigation of the Mississippi ;" 
and, to enforce what he had written, repeated a conver- 
sation he had had with a British member of Parliament 
on the subject. To Gardoqui, in a letter dated January 
1, 1789, he wrote that, in case his intended propositions to 
Spain had been rejected by Navarro and Miro, it had been 
his purpose " to open negotiations with Great Britain, lohich 
had been already activk m the matter."* This shows 
that, prior to his visit to N'ew Orleans, in June, 1787, he 
had already been in consultation and correspondence with 
British authorities in reference to the separation of Ken- 
tucky from the United States and an alliance with Great 
Britain, and was one of the persons who had been ap- 
proached by British partisans, as had been hinted to Mad- 
ison. Gardoqui's dispatch mentions those British in- 
trigues. 

In one of the articles published in the Western World, 
and which was reproduced in the Lexington Gazette, of 
July 12, 1806, it was stated that Wilkinson had been ap- 
proached by these" British partisans" and had made a 
written report encouraging their hopes; that the Courts of 
both Madrid and Paris were looking to a separation of 
Kentucky from the Union, and were eager to use her an- 



*Gayarre, page 249. 



2i*4 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

ticipated action for their own advancement. Said the 
article : "While Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Canada, 
Avas impressed with a similar view by the ministry of Great 
Britain; a- copy of Wilkinson's report was transynitted to 
Lord Dorchester, lohich is probably yet in that nobleman's 
possession; but another manuscript is preserved in the pri- 
vate library of the Earl of Bute, at his family seat of 
Mount Stuart in Scotland." From the connection in 
which this statement was made in the Western World, the 
present writer infers that the editor intended to be under- 
stood, that this report was made by Wilkinson prior to his 
trip to New Orleans and engagement with Miro. How- 
ever that may be, the statement was positively made, and 
beyond question was not manufactured, but was based 
upon information. That Wilkinson had conferred with 
British emissaries before his trip to New Orleans, and was 
then as ready to negotiate with them as he did with Miro 
during that trip, is established by his own writings. 

The attention of the reader is now requested to the fol- 
lowing dispatch from Dorchester to Lord Sydney, viz.: 

Quebec, 11th April, 1789. 

My Lord: — I am informed the Spanish Government at New Orleans 
has, for some time past, observed a very friendly conduct towards the 
inhabitants of Kentucky. 

Special permits have been put into the hands of some of the leading 
characters of those settlements for sending down the Mississippi deter- 
minate quantities of tobacco, which are purchased at New Orleans on 
account of the Government, and ten thousand dollars have been issued 
from tlie public treasury there for the purpose of purchasing merchan- 
dise in Kentucky, which sum has been consigned to gentlemen of that 
country, and is actually arrived at the Falls of the Ohio. 

The Spanish territories upon the Mississippi, between the thirty-first 
and thirty-third degrees of north latitude, are erected into a Lieuten- 
ancy, dependent on New Orleans, a governor has been appointed, and 
all Americans are invited to settle there under flattering offers. 

A Monsieur d'Arges, a Knight of the Order of St. Louis, who has been 
a resident of Kentucky for near a year, and in the employ of the Span- 
ish Government, is said to have advised this measure at the Court of 
Madrid, v.liere he has had several audiences since he left Kentucky. 

On the west side of the Mississippi, opposite the mouth of the Ohio, 
another Spanish settlement is intended with similar views, under the 
agency of a IVIr. Morgan, formerly a merchant at Philadelphia, who is 
now upon the Ohio. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 295 

Notwithstanding the favorable answer given by Congress to the de- 
mand of Kentucky to be admitted a sovereign State in the Union, the 
people of that conntry have lately discovered a strong inclination to an 
entire separation, and some of their leading men have entered into cor- 
respondence with the Spanish Government at New Orleans. 

Their apprehension that Congress will consent to give up the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi for twenty-five years is one of the reasons which 
induces them to listen to the overtures of Spain. 

In a late convention, held at Danville, it has been proposed by those 
who are gained over to the Spanish views to throw themselves under 
the protection of that power. 

But the general result of more private councils among them is said to 
be to declare independence of the Federal Union, take possession of 
New Orleans and look to Great Britain for such assistance as might 
enable them to accomplish these designs. 

A committee of private correspondence has been appointed by them to 
influence all the inhabitants west of the mountains in the same measure. 

I inclose some of tln'ir political reflexions on the state of aflairs in the 
western country. 

A new American settlement is now forming at the mouth of the Great 
Miami, on the north side of the Ohio, conducted by a Mr. Symmes, a 
late member of Congress, and covered by a garrison of one hundred 
and fifty Continental troops. 

I am, with much respect and esteem, your Lordship's most obedient 
and most humble servant, 

DOUCHESTER. 

The Right Hon'ble Lord Sydney.* 

The reader will observe from the entire tenor of this 
dispatch, that Dorchester's expectations and hopes rested 
entirely upon those who were dissatisfied with the Union, 
who had but recently made an eftbrt to withdraw from 
it, and who were balancing, as he supposed, between 
an alliance with Spain to obtain from her the navigation 
of the Mississippi ; and one with Great Britain, and, with 
the aid of the latter power, to drive out the S})anish and 
take possession of jSTew Orleans. In the November con- 
vention, he says, " it has been proposed by those wlio are 
gained over to the Spanish views to throw themselves 
under the protection of that power. But the general re- 
su\t oi more private councils B,moug them, is said to be to 
declare independence ot the Federal Union, take posses- 
sion of New Orleans, and look to Britain," etc. The an- 



*The above dispatch is copied fro'.ii the (^aiiadiun arciiives, piibli.slied 
in 18;h). 



296 The Spariish Cov ^'piracy. 

tecedent to which the pronoun " them " in the last sentence 
refers is manifestly the pronoun " those" in the immedi- 
ately preceding sentence. " Those who are gained over to 
the views of Spain " had taken position accordingly in the 
convention ; but afterwards, the " result of more private 
councils among them " (or " those w^ho are gained over to 
the views of Spain ") is represented to be to look to Great 
Britain instead of to Spain. The language of Dorchester is 
fairly susceptible of no other construction than the mean- 
ing plainly conveyed by its context. It could have had 
no. reference to the men whose attachment to the Union 
in resisting Spanish designs in the November convention 
had been so recently and so bravely manifested. It re- 
ferred to Wilkinson and his coterie. The following are 
'^ their political reflexions on the state of affairs in the 
western country," referred to by Dorchester, and which 
he inclosed to Lord Sydney, viz : 

Desultory Reflexions by a (Gentleman of Kentucky. 

1. The River Mississippi being the channel by which the Western 
settlements of America must export their products, we may form a just 
estimate of the importance of this channel by casting our eyes over a 
map comprehending that vast and luxuriant Country watered by its 
branches. 

2. As the balance inclines the beam, the Atlantic States of America 
must sink as the Western settlements rise. Nature has interposed ob- 
stacles and established barriers between these regions which forbid their 
connexion on principles of reciprocal interests, and the flimsy texture 
of republican government is insufficient to hold in the same political 
bonds a people detached and scattered over such an expanse of territory, 
whose views and interests are discordant. 

3. Thus local causes, irresistible in their nature, must produce a se- 
cession of the Western settlements from the Atlantic States, and the 
period is not very distant. But these people must for ages continue ag- 
ricultural ; of consequence foreign protection will be expedient to their 
happiness,' and this protection must necessarily comprehend the right of 
navigating the Mississippi, with a marine to protect its commerce. That 
power which commands the navigation of the Mississippi as completely 
commands the whole country traversed by its waters as the key does 
the lock, the citadel the out-works. 

4. The Politics of the Western Country are verging fast to a crisis, 
and must speedily eventuate in an appeal to the patronage of Spain or 
Britain. No interruption can be apprehended from Congress ; the sedi- 
tious temper and jarring interests of the Atlantic States forbid general 



The. Spanish Conspiracy. 297 

arrangements for the public good, and mnst involve a <iegree of iinbceil- 
ity, distraction, and capricious policy which a high-toned monan^hy can 
alone remedy ; but the revolutions and changes necessary to rec^oncile 
the people to such a government must involve much delay. (Ireat 
Britain ought to prej^are for the occasion, and she should employ the 
interval in forming confidential connexions with men of enterprize, 
capacity, and popular influence resident on the Western Waters. 

[Indorsed: In Lord Dorchester's to Lord Sylney, No. 107, of the Uth 
April, 17S9.] * 

The pronouns ''those,'' "-them" and ''•their,'' employed 
by Dorchester in four consecutive sentences of the dis- 
patch which refer to the above paper, all used in the 
same immediate connection, unmistakably relate to the 
same party. There was no other party than the one 
which had " lately discovered a strong inclination to an entire 
separation, and some of whose leading men have entered into 
correspondence ivith the Spanish governmevt at New Orleans " — 
the party led by Wilkinson, Brown, Sebastian and Innes, 
— mentioned in the dispatch, nor any other to whom Dor- 
chester's words could possibly have liad reference. To the 
writer the paper appears, on its face, to have been written 
before the engagement of Wilkinson with Miro and prior 
to the overture of Gardoqui which John Brown promised 
to " aid ; " — because it speaks of " an appeal to the patron- 
age of Spain or Britain " as something in the future — 
that " must speedily eventuate." This impression is 
strengthened by the fact, that, although the dispatch of 
Dorchester in which it was inclosed is dated in April, 
1789, yet both this dispatch and the " reflexions " are 
published in the Archives in pages which precede dis- 
patches of a later date which inclosed papers that were 
unquestionably written in 1787. But, whether or not the 
writer is correct in this — whether the " reflexions " were 
written in 1787, or after the November convention of 1788 
— the letter of Dorchester and the " reflexions" themselves 
alike show, that they emanated from some one of the men 
who had disclosed their purpose in the November conven- 
tion to separate Kentucky from the Union. It is perfectly 

* This paper is copied as it is published in " The Political Beginnings." 



298 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

clear that it is, in fact, the very " copy of WHkinson^s re- 
port " which the editor of the Western World had informa- 
tion had been " transmitted to Dorchester." 

There is not an idea advanced, and scarcely an expres- 
sion nsed, in these " Reflexions of a Gentleman of Ken- 
tncky " of which the reader can not iind the counterpart, 
or one closely resembling it, m Wilkinson's letters to 
Miro to be found in Ga.yarre, and republished from that 
author in Smith's History of Kentucky. The arguments 
used in the letters of Wilkinson to the Spaniard are pre- 
cisely identical with those employed by the " Gentleman 
of Kentucky " to operate upon the Briton. But two in- 
stances of this identity of argument, of thought, and even 
of language and illustration will suffice : In the " Retiex- 
ions " occurs this sentence : "As the balance inclines the 
beam, the Atlantic States of America must sink as the 
western settlements rise." In Wilkinson's letter to Miro, 
of February 12, 1789, the same idea is presented thus: 
" It is not to be presumed that the eastern states, which at 
present have the balance of power in their favor in the 
American government, will consent to strip themselves of 
this advantage, and increase the lueight of the southern states 
by acknowledging the independence of this district and 
admitting it to be a member of the Federal Union." In 
the "Reflexions" the gentleman of Kentucky says: 
" That power which commands the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi as completely commands the whole country traversed by its 
waters as the key does the lock, the citadel the outworks." 
And Wilkinson, in his letter to Miro, thus paraphrases 
the idea, which undoubtedly was his own : " For, whatever 
power shall command that navigation wWl control all the coun- 
try which is watered by that river and by those streams that 
fall into it. This control will be as eflective and complete as 
that of the key upon the lock, or that of the citadel over 
the exterior works which it commands.'" The intelligent 
reader will come to the conclusion that, as Dorchester's 
dispatch clearly points to some member of the party 
which, as he stated, had proposed in the November con- 
vention to throw themselves under the protection of Spain, 



The Spanish Conspiracy. • 299 

and had afterwards, as the " result of more prioafe councils," 
conchided to look to Great Britain instead, as having fav- 
ored him with these " Reflexions," — so the identity of the 
sentiments, words and illustrations in those " Reflexions " 
with those of Wilkinson's letter to Miro, prove that arch 
traitor to have been the author of both. 

The reader will not need to be reminded, that in the 
name of John Connolly the patent to a large body of land 
covering a great portion of the site of the present city of 
Louisville, had leen issued in 1773, and that it was confis- 
cated as the property of a Tory. Professing to have discov- 
ered some legal flaw in the proceedings which had stripped 
him of his jtossessions, and to have come for the purpose 
of having those proceedings set aside Jind liis lands re- 
stored to him, Dr. Connolly visited Kentucky in the fall 
of 1788. While the motives assigned may not have been 
entirely deceitful, it seems certain that the most impor- 
tant, if not the only real, business he had in Kentucky 
was to watch the course of the Spanish intrigue, which 
was known to have been in progress, and, if practicable, 
to create a diversion in favor of King George. lie came 
from Detroit to the Big Miami, followed that stream to 
its mouth, and thence proceeded to Louisville, whore his 
friend and former partner in the owtiership of the land 
at the Falls, Colonel John Campbell, lived. From the let- 
ter of General Wilkinson to Miro, of February 12, 1789, 
it is ascertained that Connolly " arrived in Louisville in 
the beginning of October," * 1788, and with this state- 
ment information derived from other sources fully corre- 
sponds. There, if Wilkinson's account be true, he remained 
during the canvass preceding the election of delegates to 
the l^rovend)er convention of that year, and <lnring the 
sitting of that convention, securing full information of all 
that transpired, and having ample opportunity of consult- 
ing and communicating with many of the prominent and 
influential men of the district. Wilkinson received "im- 
mediate information " from Dunn of Connolly's presence 



Gayarrc, page 2;>5. 



300 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

at Louisville, "and of the intention which Connolly had 
to visit him" (me), for the purpose of detachino^ him from 
the interest of Spain, and of bribing him to enter into the 
designs of the British ; and Wilkinson invited Connolly to 
visit him in Lexington. " Consequently," says Wilkinson, 
" he came to my house on the Sth of November," 1788. As 
the letter is printed in Gayarre, the Sth of November is 
stated by Wilkinson as the date of Connolly's arrival at 
his house; but this is clearly a misprint or else a slip of 
Wilkinson's pen for the ISth of November; because the 
official report of the November convention shows that on 
the 8th of November Wilkinson was in Danville, and was 
not at his home in Lexington. He did not leave Danville 
until after the adjournment of the convention late on the 
10th of November. That the 18th was intended is the 
more certain from Wilkinson's further statement in the 
same letter, that, after having "pumped" Connolly, he 
succeeded in terrifying him by employing a hunter to 
make a pretended attempt upon his life, which alarmed 
Connolly "so much, that he begged me to give him an 
escort to conduct him out of our territory, which I readily 
consented to, and on the 20th of November, he recrossed 
the Ohio on his way back to Detroit." The context of 
Wilkinson's letter represents that Connolly's departure 
very closely followed his arrival, probably on the very 
next morning, which, if it was the 19th, would have given 
time for him to have reached Maysville, the place where 
he crossed the Ohio on his return to Detroit, by the 20th 
of the month.* 



* It should be stated in this connection that a copy of a pass said to 
have been given by Connolly to a messenger whom he dispatched to 
Canada, which was alleged to have been dated at Lexington, December 
2, 1788, and was forwarded by Isaac Dunn to General St. Clair, conflicts 
with the statement of Wilkinson as to the time when Connolly left. Lex- 
ington. St. Clair's letters later still in December show that he supposed 
Connolly was yet in Lexington when those letters were written. This 
would confirm the statement made in the Western World in 1806, that 
Connolly remained in Lexington about three weeks. It is altogether 
probable that Wilkinson lied to Miro as to the expedition with which he 
got rid of Connolly, and if he lied about that, it could only have been 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 801 

It is known that Connolly paid a call at the residence of 
Colonel Thomas Marshall hefore visiting Wilkinson, and 
that he went from the house of the former to that of the 
latter. 

After describing the contents of Brown's letter to Muter 
and of Wilkinson's Memorial, and relating the conduct of 
both in the November convention, in his letter to Wash- 
ington, Colonel Marshall wrote that '■'■about this time" arrived 
from Canada the famous Dr. Connolly ; " his ostensible 
business was to inquire after and repossess himself of, 
some lands he formerly held at the Falls of the Ohio ; but 
I believe his real business was to sound the disposition of 
the leading men of this district respecting this Spanish 
business. Me knew that both Colonel Muter and myself had 
given it all the opposition in convention we were able to do, and 
before he left the district, ^^azW us a visit, though neither of as 
had the honor of the least acquaintance with him." It is 
made certain by this statement of Colonel Marshall that 
the visit of Connolly to Muter and himself was after the 
convention, in which Connolly " knew" that these two men 
liad given the " Spanish business" " all the opposition tliey 
were able to do ; " and that it was made after Connolly had 
been in Kentucky for some time and was about to leave 
the district. The letter of Wilkinson to Miro, and that 
of Colonel Marshall to Washington, were written on the 
same day, give the same account of the conduct of Wil- 
kinson, Brown and their party, and agree as to the time 
when Connolly's visit was made to them. Connolly was 
accompanied to Colonel Marshall's by his former partner, 
Colonel John Campbell, who introduced bin), and stated 
the object of his visit, and who, if not actually favorable 
to Connolly's designs, had certainly been communicated 
with and was cognizant thereof. As stated to Colonel 
Marshall by Connolly, the schemes were that, if the Ken- 
tuckians were disposed to assert their rights to the naviga- 



te disguise the fact that while committed to Spain he was intriguing 
with Britain. That he was the " Kentucky Gentleman " who wrote the 
" Reflexions " is unquestionable. 



o02 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tion of the Mississippi, Great Britain would furnish them 
with arms, ammunition, clothing and money and aid them 
with four thousand troops from Canada, besides the two 
regiments then in Detroit; — with which assistance it was 
calculated that the Kentuckiana could seize upon New 
Orleans, fortify the Balize, and maintain themselves 
against Spain, It appears that no condition was annexed 
by Connolly, that this aid would be made contingant upon 
a separation from the Union by Kentucky ; but it was 
plain to Colonel Marshall that this was implied. " It ap- 
})ears plain to me," he wrote to Washington, "that the 
offers of Lord Dorchester, as well as those of Spain, are 
f(»inidod on the supposition that it is a fact that we are 
about to separate from the Union ; else, why are those 
oUbrs uot made to Congress?" 

The professions of Connolly, a desire to serve the 
district, were so earnest, that, as he wrote to Washington, 
Colonel Marshall might have confided to him his appre- 
hensions from the machinations of Spain ; but from this 
he was withheld by his knowledge of the Tory's character 
as a perfidious intriguer. lie responded to Connolly's 
protestations of the friendliness of Lord Dorchester to the 
Kentuckians by sarcastically reminding him of the con- 
duct of Great Britain during the revolution; indicating 
the opinion that, at that very time, the Indians were being 
stimulated in their attacks upon Keutuckians by the 
British; and that so long as the savages who perpetrated 
"such horrid cruelties upon our defenseless frontiers" 
" were received as friends and allies by the British at De- 
troit, it would be impossible" for Kentuckians to "be con- 
vinced of the sincerity of Lord Dorchester's ofters, let his 
professions be ever so strong." He concluded by telling 
Connolly that those professions of friendship would come 
with better grace after Lord Dorchester had " shown his 
disapprobation of the ravages of the Indians." Connolly 
disclaimed all responsibility on the part of the British for 
those outrages; but promised that on his return he would 
repeat to Dorchester arguments he had already made as to 
the necessity of interfering to prevent them, and in this 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 303 

he hoped to succeed. On taking his leave after this dis- 
couraging conversation, he politely requested that Muter 
and Marshall would correspond with him, and this they 
both consented to do if he would commence the corres- 
pondence and provide a means of carrying it o!i. There 
was not one word w4iich fell from the lips of Muter or 
Marshall to encourage a hope on the part of Connolly that 
either could ever be made an accessory to any scheme for 
separating Kentucky from the Union, or to one for assail- 
ing the provinces of Spain while the United States were 
at peace with that nation. All his professions of friend- 
ship and jjroffers of assistance were treated by them as 
insincere and deceitful. The reception he met with was so 
repellant, that neither ever saw or heard from him after- 
wards. The correspondence was never commenced. 

Colonel John Mason Brown had already placed Muter 
and Marshall in the July convention, of which neither was 
a member, in order to have tliem vote for Caleb Vv^al- 
lace's and the recommendatory resolutions, wliich votes 
they never gave, and to which resolutions their entire 
course proved that both were hostile. To make it ap])ear 
that they gave those alleged votes, which they never cast, 
while both were fully aware of the overture of Gardoqui 
and of what Brown expected to accomplish, and Caleb 
Wallace and Wilkinson tried to effect, by an illegal sepa- 
ration from Virginia and an assumption of independence 
and sovereignty, Colonel Brown made Muter receive 
Brown's letter and communicate its contents to Marshall 
and Edwards, before or during the July convention ; while 
Muter, in a published letter, had stated that it was not 
received until the following fall. Then, to give color to 
his insinuation that they were influenced by Connolly to 
change their position, and to oppose the efforts of John 
Brown, (which he pretended to be for the immediate ad- 
mission of Kentucky into the Union), in order to favor 
the designs of the British agent, he represented the visit 
of Connolly to have been made to Colonel Marshall in Octo- 
ber, 1788, before Muter's address of the 15th of that month 
had been issued. But Colonel Brown, when he made this 



304 The Spanish Consjpiraxty. 

statement, had read, and could scarcely have forgotten, 
the letter of Wilkinson to Miro, as well as that of Mar- 
shall to Washington, both written on the same day, 
while the time of the visit and the conversations were 
fresh in the minds of both. He knew from those letters 
that the visits of Connolly to Colonel Marshall and to 
Wilkinson were made in November^ 1788, after the con- 
vention of that month ; and that prior to those visits he 
had passed some time in Louisville. The historian, Mar- 
shall, (page 346), Butler, (page 183), and every other per- 
son who ever wrote upon the subject, informed him that 
the visit was made in Noveniber.'^ 

Yet, while stating that "Colonel John Connolly made 
his way from Detroit to Kentucky, where he arrived in 
the beginning of October,"! Colonel Brown purposely 
omitted to mention his visit to ;uid sojourn in Lo'uisville. 
He then suppressed what Wilkinson and Marshall both 
wrote of the time at which Connolly's visits were made 
to them, which shows that it was in November, and after 
the convention ; and says, that " Wilkinson imagined that 
the purpose of the visit (to Kentucky) was to win over 
himself, and met Connolly with a show of friendliness that 
drew from him an avowal of the British plan;" — thus 
striving to produce the impression, that the meeting be- 
tween Connolly and Wilkinson was upon the "arrival" of 
the former in Kentucky, " in the beginning of October," 
thougli all the evidenc(! informed him that it did not take 
place until weeks later. Suppressing that part of Colo- 
nel Marshall's letter which incontestably establishes that 
the visit of Connolly to him was made after the adjourn- 
ment of the Danville convention in November, Colonel 
Brown asserts, that " it was in February, 1789, that Colonel 
Thomas Marshall, in the same letter which intimated his 
suspicion that Brown favored separation from the Union 



■ ButliT not only refers to (JonnoUy's sojourn in Louisville, prior to 
going to Fayette, but alludes to the fact that he was threatened by mob 
law while in Louisville, quoting Captain Hughes as authority. See 
note at bottom of page 184. 

tl'ulitical Beginnings, page 18'-'. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 305 

and alliance with Spain, admitted to Washington his own 
interview {in October, 1788) with Connolly and the dis- 
cussion between them, Muter participating, of an estab- 
lishment of commercial and military alliance with Eng- 
land."* Characteristically Colonel Brown then prints 
Colonel Marshall's account of the offers made by Con- 
nolly ; and, of course, omits Colonel Marshall's contemptu- 
ous rejection of those deceitful protestations of friendship 
on the part of Britain. 

In a note at the bottom of page 184 of " The Political 
Beginnings " its distinguished author says : " The fo7'mer 
acquaintance of Connolly and Thomas Marshall, and the 
circumstances of the visit of the former to Marshall's 
home in (what is now) Woodford County, aj^e detailed by 
A. K. Marshall (son of Thomas) in the Western World 
newspaper for 25th of October, 1806, in one of the innu- 
merable articles filled with charge and countercharge that 
were then so fashionable in political controversy. From 
this statement it is clear that Connolly made to Thomas 
Marshall, in October, 1788, direct overtures for a severance 
from the Union and a state organization under British 
protection." Colonel Brown had, with the purpose for 
which his book was written, the strongest possible motive 
for not quoting the communication from A. K. Marshall to 
which his note referred. That motive is explained by the 
fact, that neither the communication in question, nor any 
other from A. K. Marshall, nor any from an^^ other mem- 
ber of that family, contains a solitary word from Avhich the 
wildest imagination could find the slightest foundation for 
Colonel Brown's statement, either that a former acquaint- 
ance had existed between Marshall and Connolly, or that 
the visit of the latter was made in October, 1788.t On 

^Political Beginnings, page 185. 

t The communication referred to was originally published in the Lex- 
ington Gazette, and was republished from that paper in the Western World, 
October 25, 1806. There is but one file of the latter paper in existence, 
which is owned by George D. Todd, of Louisville, which was examined 
by Colonel Brown, and from that very copy of the paper of that issue 
which Colonel Brown read, the following copy of that portion of the 
said communication which refers to the visit of ConnoUv to Colonel 

20 



306 The Simnish Conspiracy. 

the contrary, it distinctly appears from that communica- 
tion that the visit of Connolly was not made until after 



Marshall, was copied by the writer, and is now laid before the reader, 
viz : 

' " But that I see it, I should scarcely believe this fact would be urged 
as a stigma on my father. It is true that Colonel Connolly did call at 
Buck Pond ; it is also true he made overtures, tending to the separation 
of Kentucky from the United States, and used many arguments to in- 
duce my father to think the measure, and the possession of the Missis- 
sippi through British influence, would redound to the advantage of the 
District ; it is equally true that these overtures Avere repelled and that 
my father immediately communicated with General Washington on the 
subject ; and it is also true that the copy of this communication, and 
General Washington's answer, are not so far from Frankfort as the city 
of Richmond, and if any of the papers on this subject are in the hands 
of the Chief Justice, he acquired them with the other papers of Gen- 
eral Washington, and for a purpose too well known to need remark. 
These papers were never kei)t secret, they were shown to many, but as 
the interest in them had been lost, they were deposited with other old 
letters, and perhaps would never again have been noticed, but for the 
publications which have called them into view. They shall now be 
given to the world, and except those letters which will be extorted from 
me by Franklin, the editors of the W^estern World never did derive 
any information from me, (for I possessed none) or from my father's 
bureau, or as I believe from any member of my family. Yet the 
above declaration is not to be understood as extending to occasional re- 
marks published in that paper, for I believe several pieces have flowed 
from the pen of some of my family, who are willing to avow them. 
[This qualification had reference to communications over the signature 
of " Observer," which wer,e known to have been written by Humphrey 
Marshall, but which were not written until the latter had himself been 
vituperated by the friends of Brown and Sebastian and the connections 
of Innes. There followed the above, allusions to Colonel Marshall's 
revolutionary services, and to his satisfaction at the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution. The communication then continued :] 

" In the midst of sensations like these, the best and most virtuous of 
the human soul, the project of dismemberment rose like a cloud, to 
blot the felicities of his declining days. He opjjosed the project, and, 
aided by a majority of the citizens of Kentucky, he opposed it with success. 
While the irritations of that contest were still fresh in his mind, and the lacer- 
ations of opposition were scarcely healed, Connolly called, and opened to his 
view neAV scenes of turbulence and disquiet. 

"How far the arts of Colonel Connolly might influence the discon- 
tented and inflammatory spirits then in Kentucky it was not for my 
father to decide ; but devoted to the independence of America in all its 
parts, and abhorring the idea of again becoming subject to a domination 
in opposition to which he wasted the mellow autumn of his years, he 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 307 

Colonel Marshall had successfully ojyposed the project of dis- 
memberment, which was disclosed and was so successfully op- 
posed in the November convention ; and that the visit was 
made while the irritation of that contest was still fresh in 
Colonel Marshall's mind. As A. K. Marshall, in this very 
communication, promised to give to the public the letter 
of his father, and did accompany the communication by a 
<;opy of that letter, which made the same statement, there 
was nothing therein from which the inference stated by 
Colonel Brown could possibly have been drawn. 

And so far from "detailing the former acquaintance of 
Connolly and- Thomas Marshall," the communication 
made no mention of such an acquaintance ; for there was 
none ; and the fact that there was none was stated by 
Colonel Marshall himself in the very letter which was fur- 
nished to the public with that communication ; and which 
statement Colonel Brown suppressed. In a later communi- 
cation, published December 4, 1806, A. K. Marshall stated, 
as one of the proofs that the family of Colonel Marshall 
had not given to the Western WorlA the information upon 
which its editorials were based, the fact, that, in one of those 
editorials published in the previous June or July, a previous 
acquaintance between Connolly and Colonel Marshall had 
been asserted, which the family all knew to be untrue 
from Colonel Marshall's own letter. * The inevitable in- 



informed the head of the government he adored, of the machinations 
of her foes— not ... to abuse the presidential ear, by inspiring unworthy 
suspicions of any man — not as a smiling pick thank, or a base news- 
monger, but as a man whose services entitled his representations to re- 
spect, and whose personal intimacy commanded the executive confi- 
dence." 

No one can read the above and draw from it any other inference than 
that the visit of Connolly was made after Colonel Marshall had success- 
fully opposed the project of dismemberment, xvMch xcas in the November con- 
vention. The fact that but a single copy of the paper referred to by him 
as containing this communication is in existence, made Colonel Brown 
.suppose himself secure from detection. 

*The following is the statement of A. K. Marshall referred to, viz: 
" The letters which were promised have been furnished, and the time 
when, and the reasons why they were furnished was explained in one 
of my last. If we had shown those letters, as the man supposes, before 



308 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

felicity which marks all of Colonel Brown's performances 
in the " Political Beginnings" is in nothing made more 
conspiciions than in his attempt, by this gross misstate- 
ment of Alexander K. Marshall's communication, to slur 
the dead father by misrepresenting the testimony of the 
dead son. It is wonderful to see what a superstructure 
the talented author reared upon the foundation he laid in 
his unfounded statement that, as members of the July con- 
vention, Muter and Marshall had voted for the Wallace 
and the recommendatory resolutions. Like the Arabian 
impostor, he seems to have determined to storm the un- 
derstandings of his readers by the boldness of his leading 
fictions ; so that when once the gates of suspicion against 
Marshall were forced open, entrance for all future fallacies 
and misstatements would be made secure. 

That Colonel Brown understood the statements of Col- 
onel Marshall and Wilkinson as to the time when Con- 
nolly's visit was made, and that he comprehended how 
completely they refuted his own, is made plain by their 
careful exclusion from his " Political Beginnings." Col- 
onel Brown says, that " it is not to be asserted that Mar- 
shall agreed " to the alleged overtures of Connolly, and 
that " every presumption is to the contrary." But had he 
not taken such extraordinary pains to conceal from his 
readers what Colonel Marshall had actually said to Con- 
noil}^, as detailed in the letter to Washington, he would 
have saved himself the trouble of this misleading ad- 
mission ; that Marshall did not " agree " would not have 
been left to a mere " presumption ; " but his readers would 
have been furnished with conclusive evidence that Mar- 
shall treated the professions of friendship to Kentucky 
and the proffers made by Connolly vvnth the contempt they 
merited. 

The candid reader has not failed to mark the systematic 



the establishment of the paper, would the editors have stated they were 
in Richmond, or would they have stated an acquaintance between my 
father and Colonel Connolly, when the letter expressly denies such an ac- 
quaintance ? " 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 309 

plan which appears in all Colonel Brown's suppressions, 
nor the deliberate purpose which is apparent in all his in- 
accuracies ; and he has detected the motive of the talented 
author for concealing the proof that Connolly's visit was 
made in I^ovember, and for incorrectly asserting that it 
was made in October and before Muter's address was 
issued ; — that it was to lay the basis of his insinuation that 
the resistance offered by Marshall and Muter to the 
schemes of Wilkinson and Brown was prompted by Con- 
nolly. His attention is now drawn to an additional object 
of all this suppression of facts, of these misstatements of 
the evidence, and of these pamfully manufactured inac- 
curacies. On page 202 of his peculiar book, Colonel 
Brown reveals himself and his purpose still more clearly. 
Alluding to the adjournment of the November convention, 
he there says : 

" The parting of its members was not the kindly one of the preceding 
July. Angry taunts of inconsistency had been made against Judge 
Muter and Colonel Marshall. In turn they branded those who differed 
from them as traitors. The visit of Connolly to Marshall was suggested to he 
a British intrigue, and with equal heat the conversation of Brown with Gardo- 
qui was declared to he a Spanish conspiracy. ' Colonel Marslmll went so far as 
to write to Washington {12th Fehruary, 1789), detailing what had occurred in 
the convention, and giving his version of what Brown had there said.'^ 

That is, that Colonel Marshall's charges against Wilkin- 
son and Brown were simply recriminatory, in retort for 
accusations they had preferred against him ; and that it 
was under the influence of the irritation of the crimina- 
tion of himself that Colonel Marshall wrote his letter to 
Washington ! It was to prepare the way for this manu- 
factured scene — for these pretended " taunts of inconsis- 
tency " — for this grand climax — that Colonel Brown made 
Muter and Marshall members of the July convention, of 
which he was informed by two letters of Muter that he 
was not a member, and by Humphrey Marshall that neither 
Muter nor Marshall was a member ; and that he forced 
them to vote for the resolution of Wilkinson and Wallace, 
in spite not only of this proof that neither was a member 
of that convention, but of Greenup's deposition, which he 
had read, that he had heard both declare their hostility to 



310 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

that resolution. It was to lay the foundation for his state- 
ment that Colonel Marshall's charcres against Wilkinson, 
Brown and their faction, at the adjournment of the No- 
vember convention, was simply in retaliation for the " sug- 
gestion that the visit of Connolly" to himself "was a 
British intrigue," that the talented author of the " Politi- 
cal Beginnings " resorted to the hold devices of affirming 
that visit to have been in October, and of giving the com- 
munication of A. K. Marshall, as published in a paper of 
which there is but one copy in the world, as his authority 
for that statement ; — when he knew positively, that it ap- 
peared as distinctly from the communication of the latter, 
that the visit was not made until after the adjournment of 
the November convention, as the same fact appeared in 
the letters of both Wilkinson and Marshall, which he sup- 
presses, and in all the written histories referring to the 
subject. The scene described by Colonel Brown never 
occurred. It is purely a creation by the talented author. 
Neither Muter nor Marshall had ever seen Connolly until 
a few days after the adjournment, and no suggestion could 
possibly have been made at that time, that a visit which 
had not been made Avas a British intrigue. Not one of 
these men ever made such a suggestion to Colonel Mar- 
shall as that ascribed to them by Colonel Brown. It is 
true, however, that " alienations there took j^l^ce, for 
which time offered no change, nor reflection any relaxa- 
tion." Colonel Marshall made to the faces of these men 
in plain terms the charges which he but guardedly con- 
veyed to General Washington. He was at no pains to 
hide the indignation which flashed from his eye nor the 
bitter scorn which curled his lip; that they hated him 
because they knew he understood them, is true, and that 
Brown, at least, transmitted his rancor is evident from the 
vindictive aspersions heaped upon Marshall in the "Begin- 
nings." 

Colonel Brown is at special pains to impress upon his 
readers the fact, that Colonel Marshall did not write to 
Washington the details of Connolly's visit until the 12th 
of February, 1789, and clearly implies that the delay was 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 311 

with an object. He deemed it unnecessary to suggest, 
that there were no mail facilities, and that no chance oppor- 
tunity of forwarding a communication might have earlier 
presented itself. IsTor does it seem to have occurred to the 
ingenuous author, that the letter was written immediately 
after the popular elections were held which called Wash- 
ington to the Presidency, three weeks before the Electoral 
Colleges had voted, and two months before his inauguration; 
— until which event there was no practical object to be ac- 
complished by placing Washington in possession of the 
information, as, prior to his induction into the Presidency, 
he was charged with no duty and possessed no power in 
relation to the subject of the communication. Colonel 
Brown thinks it a matter of importance that Hary Innes 
wrote to Washington of Connolly's visit to Kentucky as 
early as the 18th of December, 1788 ; and contrasts his 
promptitude with the delay of Colonel Marshall ; and, on 
page 211, he intimates that in that letter Innes charged 
Colonel Marshall with being implicated in an intrigue 
with Connolly. 

The reader who has the interest to turn to Sparks, Vol. 
IX., page 474, will see that no reference Avhatever to Colo- 
nel Marshall was made by Innes in that letter, which did 
not apply to Marshall any more than it did to Innes' 
friend. General Charles Scott, who was also visited and 
conferred with by Connolly. 

But there was a marked contrast between the conduct 
of Marshall and Innes, which Colonel Brown must have 
noted, but upon which he did not deem it expedient to 
dwell : While Marshall stated to Washington not only the 
machinations of the Spaniards, as evidenced by the memo- 
rial of Wilkinson, the letters of Brown, and the speeches 
and conduct of both, but also and as fully the details of 
Connolly's remarks to Muter and himself, as equally show- 
ing the critical condition of affairs in the district, when 
both Spaniard and Briton assumed, as a foregone conclu- 
sion, that Kentucky was on the point of separating from 
the Union ; — Innes, who, since the previous February, had 
known from Wilkinson all about his engagement with 



312 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Miro, who was informed of Gardoqui's proposition to 
John Brown, who had heard Wilkinson's memorial read 
and listened to John Brown's speech in the ]^ovember 
convention, and who had, in the Jnly, as well as in the 
November convention, co-operated with them in their ef- 
forts to precipitate the district into the initial step of the 
programme; — Innes wrote to Washington of the " ablior- 
ence and detestation" he had "for a British connexion," 
and that the conduct of Connolly had " alarmed his fears," 
but did not write one word of the Spanish machinations 
with his friends, Wilkinson and Brown ! To the unbiased 
reader, however, this marked contrast in the conduct of 
the two men, one of whom had nothing, and the other 
much, to conceal, will appear vastly more significant than 
that one wrote in December, 1788, and the other in Feb- 
ruary, 1789. 

It suited the purpose of Colonel Brown to ignore all the 
abundant evidence, that for years there had been British 
emissaries in Kentucky, and that a disposition had existed 
on the part of some to seek a British alliance ; to refer to 
the effect of Connolly's visit exclusively as turning " a few 
minds to the contemplation of an English protectorate ;" 
and then to endeavor to make it appear, that one of those 
minds was that of Colonel Marshall, and, as the reader 
has seen, to covertly attribute to that influence the resist- 
ance made by Colonel Marshall to the schemes of Wilkin- 
son and Brown. Pursuing this line of insinuation the tal- 
ented author fishes from the Canadian archives the dis- 
patch of Dorchester and the " Reflexions of a Gentleman 
from Kentucky," which appear on a previous page, and 
parading the latter as if it were a bran new discovery, in- 
stead of being the '-'■report of Wilkinson" the existence of 
which was known to, and was, with the name of its au- 
thor, stated by, the editor of the Western World in 1806, 
enters into a labored argument to show that it had 
emanated from Colonel Marshall. True, Colonel Brown 
had, on page 184, stated that "it is not to be asserted that 
Marshall 'agreed' to Connolly's proposition; every pre- 
siunption is to the contrary. Nothing in his history war- 



llie Spanish Conspiracy. 313 

rants a suspicion of his devotion to American nationality." 
But, to so remarkable an author, neither his own state- 
ment, nor the unquestionable fact that was thus affirmed, 
interposed the slightest obstacle to the insinuation and 
argument he proceeds to make on page 188, that, not 
only had Colonel Marshall "agreed" with Connolly, but 
that he had actually written a solicitation to the British 
Government to extend her protection over Kentucky, and 
to " form contidential connexions with men of enterprise, 
capacity and popular influence resident on the western 
waters ;" — (that is, in plain terms, to bribe him, as Miro 
bribed John Brown's friends, Wilkinson and Sebastian, 
and, perhaps, others of the conspirators) ; — which is unlike 
any thing which ever proceeded from the pen or mouth of 
Colonel Marshall, but finds its counterpart in the boasts, in 
the hints and in the importunities which Wilkinson wrote 
to the Intendant.* It is immaterial whether, by a critical 
examination of Dorchester's language. Colonel Brown had 
discerned that the men to whose ^'^ more private councils" 
Dorchester referred, were " those " who had in the late con- 
vention proposed " to throw themselves under the protec- 
tion " of Spain, and that the paper he sets such store by 
was " their Reflexions," and not those of any of the devoted 
friends of the Union. Nor is it important whether, by a 
comparison of the language and ideas of the " Reflex- 
ions " with those of "Wilkinson's letters to Miro, he had 
detected the author of both in his grandfather's friend and 
leader. It is of some consequence, however, that his own 
conviction that Colonel Marshall was not one of the men 
included in those " more private councils," nor the author 
of the base paper he attributes to him, is plainly demon- 
strated by the remarkable care Colonel Brown took to 



^■In his letter to Miro, of July 14, 1789, Wilkinson wrote, complaining 
of the indulgence shown by Gardoqui in his efforts to promote emi- 
gration to, and settlement in, Louisiana, viz.: " He gives passports to 
everybody, and instead of forming connections vdth men of influence in this 
district, who should be interested in favoring his designs, he negotiates with 
individuals who live in the Atlantic States, who, therefore, have no 
knowledge of this section of the countrv, and have no interest in it." 



314 The Spanish Conspiracy, 

strike out from the middle of the passage he quoted from 
Colonel Marshall's letter to "Washington, Marshall's state- 
ment of the decisive and contemptuous manner with Avhieh 
he treated the Tory's communications. 

Following the line of misrepresentation which he had 
systematized. Colonel Brown says : " It is well established 
that Connolly conferred with no more than four men of 
importance in Kentucky, General James Wilkinson, Gen- 
eral Charles Scott, Colonel Thomas Marshall and Judge 
George Muter. The mind naturally turns to one of them 
as the author" of the paper which no one who was not 
thoroughly and infamously a traitor at lieart could or 
would have written. Scott is then dismissed from consid- 
eration because of his literary incapacity. Ilife grand- 
father's friend, "Wilkinson, is then eliminated, as if an 
algebraic zero, on the ground of the dissimilarity between 
his style and that of the " Reflexions," — of the sufficiency of 
which the reader, who has noted the identity between the 
ideas and expressions in the " Reflexions" and those used 
by Wilkinson, can judge. 'And for the further reason that 
Wilkinson was already committed to Spain; — the force 
of which the reader, who know^s how Wilkinson, when 
the commander-in-chief of the United States army, in- 
trigued with Burr to invade Mexico, and at the same time 
demanded money from Spain as the price of thwarting 
Burr, — wearing the uniform of an American major-gen- 
eral, and at the same time receiving a pension from Spain 
for his services in attempting to dismember the Union, — 
can estimate at its proper value. Having thus disposed of 
Scott and Wilkinson, the talented author continues : 
" There is left the unpleasant suggestion that Thomas Mar- 
shall or George Muter w^as its author." Afterwards, poor 
old Muter is dropped as weak and unstable, and the i:)aper 
is assumed to have been written, and either delivered or 
forwarded to Connolly, by Colonel Marshall; — who, to 
have become the author of the paper thus wantonly and 
maliciously attributed to him, would have found it neces- 
sary to have suddenly transformed his own nature from 
that of the loyal, patriotic soldier, and the bold, frank 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 315 

man he had been for nearly three score years, to that of a 
sly knave and a sneaking traitor, whose heart was false and 
whose pen dripped lies. For there can be no question but 
that, if the same man who wrote the letter addressed by 
Colonel Marshall to Washington also wu^ote that paper, 
then that man added the meanness of a base liar to the 
guilt of a secret conspirator. 

If it be charitably assumed that Colonel Brown was 
really ignorant that the " Reflexions " were written by 
Wilkinson, as all the evidence combines to prove — never- 
theless it is true, that if he had published the statement of 
that conspirator, that Connolly had arrived in Louisville 
in the beginning of October, had remained there for six 
weeks before going to Fayette, and thus had ample oppor- 
tunity for conferring with many of the prominent men of 
the district, and that his visit to W^ilkinson was made in 
November, — it would have disproved his own statement, 
that it is clearly established that Connolly conferred with 
only the four men whom he named, and would have over- 
thrown the entire structure which he erected out of mate- 
rials of his own manufacture. The statement of Colonel 
Marshall, which he suppressed, that Connolly was intro- 
duced to Muter and himself by Colonel John Campbell, 
who privately stated the purpose of his visit, and that 
Connolly kneiv the part which Muter and himself had 
taken in the convention of November in defeating the " Span- 
ish business," would have confirmed Wilkinson and have 
added to his own discomfiture. It was for that reason 
they were siqjpressed and the communication of A. K, 
Marshall was misrepresented and falsified. That Colonel 
Brown's imputation upon Colonel Marshall is made hypo- 
thetically renders it the more unworthy. His very ad- 
mission that there is no ^^ positive proof" that either Muter 
or Marshall wrote the treasonable paper distinctly implies 
that there is proof, though not positive, that one or the 
other was its author. To make this injustice appear to be 
true, he garbled, suppressed, and perverted the evidence, 
and misrepresented and misstated all the facts, in a man- 
ner to which no man who believed his own cause to be 



316 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

just could ever resort. A man ignorant that Wilkinson 
was the author, and yet who had an honest purpose to 
make known the truth, would have deemed it a simple 
duty to declare, that there is no shadow of evidence that 
either Muter or Marshall had degraded himself by con- 
duct as infamous as that which they had both recently de- 
nounced and thwarted in Wilkinson and Brown. 

If the writer has wearied the patience of the reader by 
dwelling on this subject, it is because it seemed necessary 
to complete the exposure of the methods employed in the 
" Political Beginnings." The reputation of Colonel Mar- 
shall needs no vindication against the attempt of Colonel 
Brown to shift upon him this treasonable bantling of his 
ancestor's bosom friend. The letter to Washington speaks 
for itself. If there were no proof that the traitor Wilkin- 
son was the author of the " Reflexions," the record of 
Colonel Marshall's private and public life, his every utter- 
ance, his patriotic services, as valuable as they are well 
known, unite in loudly proclaiming and ineffaceably 
branding for what it is this gratuitous and characteristic 
aspersion upon his loyalty and truth. 

As the enraptured eye of the wearied traveler in the 
Sahara rests with delight upon the distant palm trees 
which shade the sparkling spring of sweet and living 
water, that gushes out from amidst the sands of the desert ; 
— so will the reader who has wandered through this be- 
wildering maze of suppression, evasion and invented inac- 
curacy which appear in the "Political Beginnings," be 
charmed to find in all its pages a solitary truth. The 
plaintive statement, that while " Thomas Marshall did hint 
suspicions of Brown," yet " Brown never allowed himself 
to question the patriotism of Thomas Marshall," is exactly 
correct. And the reader will conclude that each had an 
equally sufficient reason for his course. Thomas Marshall 
hinted suspicions of Brown because he knew from Brown's 
own letters and words that those suspicions were well 
founded. And Brown did not permit himself to question 
the patriotism of Thomas Marshall, not simply because he 
knew that it would have been unjust, but because he was 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 317 

conscious that every one else would have known that it 
was false.* 



* Thomas Marshall, the oldest sou of John ]Marshall and Ehzabeth 
Markham, was born in Westmoreland county, Va., April 2, 1730. His 
first military service was as a "trooper" from Prince William, in the 
Braddock campaign. From 1759 to the breaking out of hostilities with 
Great Britain, he frequently represented Fauquier in the House of Bur- 
gesses, and was three times appointed, with Washington, Fielding, 
Lewis, William Green, and others, to settle the claims of soldiers in the 
French and Indian war. He was a member of the Virginia Convention 
of 1775, but left his seat to assist in organizing the "Culpepper Minute 
Men," of which regiment he was major, and won distinction at the battle 
of the Great Bridge. He was also a member uf the Convention of 1776, 
and was on the committee which drew up the ordinance for organizing 
the military forces of the state ; but he left his seat in that body also to 
take the place of major of the Third Virginia Infantry, Continental 
Line. He was soon placed in command of the regiment, which per- 
formed severe duty in the year 1776. The next year he won particular 
distinction at Germantown and at Brandy wine, where more than one-half 
of his officers and one-third of his men were killed and wounded. He 
was transferred to the colonelcy of the First Artillery, Virginia State 
Line, in 1778, and commanded that regiment until the expiration of its 
term of service, in 1781. Three of his sons— all who were old enough — 
were officers in the Revolution— John at 19, Thomas at 16, and James M. 
at 15 years of age. His kindred and his wife's kindred, in every direc- 
tion, were in the patriot army — Marshalls, Markhams, Odens, Durretts, 
McClanahans, Keiths, Keys, Fords, Flemings, Randolphs, Lees, and 
Elands. 



318 The Simnish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Kentucky Finally Becomes a State, and is Admitted Into the Union 
— Wilkinson, Brown, Sebastian, Innes and Dunn Apply to 
Spain for a Grant of Land — Wilkinson Explains that it is 
Desired for a Place of Refuge in Case Kentucky gets too Hot 
FOR THEM — Colonel Brown Conceals the P'act that the Others 
were John Brown's Associates in the Proposed Enterprise — 
MiRO Promises Wilkinson that He Shall be Eewarded— Wil- 
kinson the Spanish Agent and Retained in Her Service — Miro, 
in 1790, Recommends that He be Pensioned — The Pension Prob- 
ably Granted then — The Various Sums Received by Wilkinson 
After His Appointment to the Army not on Account of Tobacco 
Sales — The Murder of Henry Owen— Murderers Hurried Away 
BY Wilkinson and Innes — Efforts of Colonel Brown to Avoid 
Marshall's Inference — He Misrepresents Thruston's Deposition, 
which Flatly Contradicts His Statement — The Murder Com- 
mitted Within American Territory and Jurisdiction — Affida- 
vits OF Langlois and Bouligny. 

In compliance with the request preferred in the Address 
finally adopted by the November convention, the Virginia 
Assembly manifested the hearty good will of the mother 
state and her sincere desire to further the wishes and pro- 
mote the welfare of her children in the distant district, by 
passing a new act of separation. But, like those which 
preceded it, this act provided that the separation should 
not take place unless Congress should previously concur 
and provide for the admission of Kentucky as a state into 
the Union simultaneously therewith. The elections for 
members of another convention were held in April, 1789, 
and were unmarked by disturbance; for Wilkinson and 
Brown were not candidates. Muter and Marshall were 
again chosen from Fayette. On the 20th of July of the 
same year the convention asseinbled. It was ascertained 
that the conditions specified by the new act were materially 
difi'erent from those which had formerly been agreed to, 
and that the change would be seriously detrimental to the 
interests of the proposed Commonwealth. The most ob- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 319 

jectionable feature in the new proposition was that which 
reserved to claimants holding Virginia land warrants an 
unlimited time for location and survey. Therefore, instead 
of proceeding thereunder, the convention addressed the 
assembly in a respectful request to rescind the objection- 
able conditions and that others be adopted conforming to 
those to which mutual agreement had already been given. 
This also was immediately done by the assembly; but still 
another convention was required, and further postpone- 
ment was unavoidable. The elections for the convention 
thus ordered were held in May, 1790 ; the convention was 
convened at Danville on the 26th of July, 1790, and George 
Muter was chosen president thereof; the terms of the last 
act of separation were formally accepted; the address to 
the assembly announcing this acceptance was prepared 
and reported by the able and popular Alexander S. Bullitt ; 
and a memorial to the President and Congress, presented 
to the convention by James Markham Marshall,* was 



* James Markham, third son of Colonel Thomas Marshall, was born in 
1764, and, until he was fifteen years old, was educated at his father's 
home by Scotch tutors. He then entered the First Virginia Artillery, 
State Line, commanded by his father, as a cadet, and remained in it 
until its term of service had expired, when he had reached the rank of 
Captain. The statement of Mr. Paxton that he served to the close of 
the war as a Lieutenant in the regiment of Alexander Hamilton is an 
error; and if, as is not probable, he "led the forlorn hope at the siege 
of Yorktown, in an attack upon the fort," it was as a volunteer, for he 
was never a member of any other regiment than the Artillery. He did 
not remain long in Kentucky. In 1793, he was a resident of Philadel- 
phia. In that city he married, in 1795, Hester, the daughter of Robert 
Morris, the patriotic financier of the Revolution, and went with her to 
Europe as the agent of the merchants of Charleston, Baltimore and New 
York. The statement of Mr. Paxton that he negotiated the release of 
Lafayette from his imprisonment at Olmutz is also a mistake. The 
credit of that negotiation is due chiefly, if not altogether, to the distin- 
guished Gouverneur Morris. It is true, however, that Marshall was ap- 
pointed by Washington on a special and secret mission to the King of 
Prussia to secure the release of Lafayette from imprisonment at Ber- 
lin. But before he reached that city the gallant Frenchman had been 
released by the King; so that he had no participation in the matter. 
While in England, he purchased from the heirs of Lord Fairfax, in his 
own name, and in those of his elder brother, .lohn Marshall, of Raleigh 
Colston, his brother-in-law, and of Light Horse Harry Lee, his kinsman, 



320 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

adopted. It expressed " attachment to the present happy 
establishment of the Federal Constitution and Government, 
stated the causes and motives for separating from Virginia, 
the ability of Kentucky to sustain a separate state govern- 
ment, and the time to which its organization was limited, 
and praying Congress and the President to sanction the 



their entire inheritance in the "Northern Neck;" which gave them, 
after compromise with Virginia, 180,000 in the Leed's Parish. James il. 
Marshall bought General Lee's interest, and thus became the owner of 
half of the purchase. He was one of the "Midnight Judges " appointed 
by Adamis, and had the reputation of abilities equal to those of the 
Chief Justice. 

The oldest son of James M. Marshall— Thomas — married Catharine 
Thornton, a granddaughter of Judge Innes. His other sons were the 
late Robert Morris Marshall, of Happy Creek ; Lieutenant John Mar- 
shall, of the Navy; the present Dr. Henry Marshall; and the eminent 
lawyer, the late James Marshall, of Winchester. The last named was a 
Union member of the Virginia convention of 1861. The only daughter 
of James M. Marshall, Susan, is the widow of the late Dr. Cary Ambler, 
of Fauquier. " Keith," a correspondent of the Commercial Gazette, of 
Cincinnati, after mentioning the records of numerous descendants of 
James M. Marshall, as soldiers in the Confederate army, wrote : 

" But braver far than any of these, more heroic than any paladin who 
ever led in headlong charge, or grimly brought up the rear guard in 
stubborn retreat, was that other grandson, the modest and gentle Dr. 
James Markham Marshall Ambler, who, upon the frozen banks of the 
Lena, in far away Siberia, laid down a young life marked by every high 
quality that could grace a gentleman. Graduating in medicine at the 
University of Maryland in 1869, he entered the Navy as a surgeon in 
1874. Though engaged to be married, the request telegraphed by the 
Department, that he would volunteer for duty on the ill-fated Jeannette, 
was one a soul like his could not decline. It is known that he might 
have saved his own life by leaving his comrades in the venture, but pre- 
ferred to die with them — a true soldier of duty, at his post. On a tablet 
in the Leeds Church, which commemorates his virtues, his fellow-sur- 
geons of the Navy recorded, that 'his sense of duty was stronger than 
his love of life;' and on a similar tablet, his former friends and class- 
mates at the Washington and Lee LTni versify, bore testimony that 'he 
declined the last chance of life that he might help his comrades. His 
last written words were the confident expression of his Christian faith. 
To him duty was the noblest word in the English language.' 'Greater 
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' 
A nobler fame, a braver end, than any that could be won or had in pri- 
vate brawl or on duelling ground ! Yes, verily! He lived purely. In 
death he reflected honor upon his lineage, upon his country, and upon 
mankind." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 321 

whole proceedings, by passing an act of admission for the 
' State of Kentucky ' into the Union, agreeable to the time 
prescribed by Virginia in her act for that purpose." Pro- 
vision was made for the election of a ninth convention, to 
assemble in April, 1792, to form a State Constitution. In 
December, 1790, the admission of Kentucky into the Union 
was strongly recommended by Washington in a message 
to Congress, and the necessary act for that purpose was 
accordingly passed on the 4th of February, 1791. The 
ninth and last convention was chosen and assembled at 
the designated times, the first constitution was formed, 
which the people ratified in May, when ofiicers were 
elected, and the new Commonwealth, after so many trials 
in which the patriotism of the masses of the people had 
been tested and proven, was at length fairly launched. 

In the meantime, a few weeks after the November con- 
vention, of 1788, a petition was forwarded to Gardoqui by 
leaders of the Spanish party in Kentucky, sojiciting the 
grant of a large body of land in the Louisiana territory, 
on the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, which Wilkinson de- 
scribed as " the most advantageous site to form a settle- 
ment above Natchez."* This petition was forwarded to 
Gardoqui by Major Isaac Dunn, the confidential agent and 
partner of Wilkinson, who wrote to Miro : " That peti- 
tion is signed by Innes, Sebastian, Dunn, Brown, and my- 
self," — par nohile fratrum. This petition of the associates 
was accompanied by the letter from Wilkinson to Gardo- 
qui, which has been already quoted. f In it he explained, 
that the proposition suggested was in the interest of the 
plans which had been arranged with Miro, and for de- 
tails it referred him to Dunn. In his letter to Miro, of 
February 12, 1789, Wilkinson informed the Intendant of 
his application to the minister, and explained that " The 
motive for this application is to procure a place of refuge for 
myself and adherents, in case it should become necessary 
for us to retire from this country, in order to avoid the 

*Gayarre, page 243. 
tibid, pages 247 to 251. 
21 



322 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

resentment of Congress."* The whole scope and every 
line of the correspondence attests that the entire purpose 
of this and all other projects for colonizing Louisiana by 
emigration from Kentucky and the West and South, were 
in distinct compliance with the advice of Navarro, thus 
to build up a bulwark against the growing power of the 
United States ; and, how^ever ill digested, delusive and fu- 
tile they may now seem, were parts of the general scheme 
for separating Kentucky from the Union. 

That in this and in all other similar projects, of which 
there were many at the time, Wilkinson acted in the in- 
terest and as the agent of Spain, is shown by the reply of 
Miro to Wilkinson's letter communicating his petition to 
Gardoqui. The service to be rendered to the king by 
promoting the immigration to Louisiana of persons who 
needed only lands and not money, was favorably men- 
tioned. " It is proper," Miro continued, " that yon 
should remain in that district, in order to insist on an al- 
liance with Spain until it be effected or given up ; because, 
according to the answer received from the Court, you are now 
our agent, and lam instructed to give you to hope that the king 
will reward your services as I have already intimated to you.^' 
And in his dispatch to the Court of Madrid, Miro recom- 
mended that §5,000, which Wilkinson claimed to have ex- 
pended in the interest of Spain, should be refunded to 
him, and that he should be further entrusted with §2,500, 
which he had asked for, to corrupt Muter and Marshall. f 
In a note at the bottom of page 172, of the " Beginnings," 
reference is made to a conversation alleged to have taken 
place between Gardoqui and John Brown in June, 1789, 
relating to this very petition of which he wrote to Miro 
and which John Brown had, conjointly with his friends, 
Wilkinson, Sebastian, Dunn, and Innes, previously con- 
veyed to Gardoqui, as though it had been a proposition 
then for the first time made by Brown alone, and as if its 
sole object was to secure the navigation of the Mississippi 



*Gayarre, page 234. 
tibid, pages 255-6. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 323 

for Kentucky. Thus : " Still bent upon pushing every 
practical expedient for securing the navigation of the Mis-* 
sissippi, Brown opened the subject by adverting to Mor- 
gan's jSTew Madrid colony, established the year before, and 
offered to find the capital for establishing, at the mouth of 
the Big Black river, one hundred American families 
within eighteen months." . . . The letters of Miro 
and Wilkinson, published in Gayarre, with which Colonel 
Brown was familiar, throw a vastly different light upon 
this project from that sought to be cast by the " Begin- 
nings ;" they disclose the real object of the scheme ; and 
they were, on that account, discreetly skipped over by 
Colonel Brown, while the names of his grandfather's asso- 
ciates in the enterprise, which of themselves suggest much 
as to its nature, were, for the same reason, most prudently 
suppressed. 

The reader is informed of the affidavit made by Daniel 
Clark, jr., which was submitted to Congress in 1808; and 
of the methods used by Wilkinson to discredit the testi- 
mony of Clark and Power, given before the court-martial 
which was then ordered for the trial of Wilkinson, who 
had then attained the highest position in the army. He 
is also informed of the manner in which that discredited 
evidence was afterwards confirmed by the publication of 
the conspirator's own letters, obtained from the Spanish 
archives. Clark affirmed that, about the year 1789,"^ he 
had seen " a list of names of citizens of the western coun- 
try, which was in the hand-writing of the General, who 
were recommended for pensions, and the sums proper to 
be paid to each were stated ; and I then distinctly under- 
stood that he and others were then actually pensioners of 
the Spanish Government. I had no personal knowledge 
of money being paid to Wilkinson, or to any agent for 
him, on account of his pension, previous to the year 1793 
or 1794." He then detailed sums of money which he 
knew had been paid to Wilkinson on account of his pen- 



*Daniel Clark, jr., was the father of Mrs. Myra, widow of General 
Edward Pendleton Gaines. 



324 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

sion, at various times and through different persons, 
amounting in the aggregate to nearly $30,000. The re- 
ceipt of some of these remittances were denied by Wil- 
kinson in the subsequent military inquiry, and those 
which were proven so that they could not be denied he 
asserted had been paid for damaged tobacco, which had 
been condemned, but was afterwards received and paid 
for by the Spanish Government. As it was certain that 
he had made sales of tobacco to that government, his sub- 
ordinates in the army, with whom he was popular, were 
only too glad to avail themselves of the "presumption" 
thus created, to acquit him. 

In his Centennial Address, Colonel Brown, who was la- 
boring to show that the corruption of Wilkinson had 
commenced long after he had abdicated the leadership 
which John Brown and Innes recognized, accepted the 
version given by Wilkinson of the receipt of these various 
sums. He may never have read the interesting volume 
published by Dan. Clark in 1809, in which the false pre- 
tenses of Wilkinson were completely exploded. In that 
book it was shown that, in 1787, Wilkinson and Isaac B. 
Dunn were partners, and that Daniel Clark, Senior, the 
uncle of the witness, acted as their agent for the sales of 
their shipment of that year, which amounted in the aggre- 
gate to $10,805. Of this sum, $3,000 were due to Clark, 
being for money he had advanced to Wilkinson, on the 
recommendation of the Spanish officials, before he left 
New Orleans, Several of Wilkinson's bills or drafts in 
favor of different parties were accepted and paid ; $3,389 
was paid in cash to Dunn in July, 1788 ; and on the 8th 
of August, 1788, all the balance due was paid, and the 
account was receipted in full by Dunn and was closed.* 
On that same day, August 8, 1788, a new partnership was 
formed between Wilkinson and Daniel Clark, Senior, and 
the sales of tobacco to the Spanish government were there- 
after made by the latter. Their gross amount up to May 

* "Proofs of the Corruption of General James Wilkinson, and of his Con- 
nexion with Aaron Burr,^' by Daniel Clark, of the City of New Orleans, 
Appendix, pages 55-6. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 325 

1, 1789, when the partnership terminated, was $16,441. 
As before, a large part of this had been anticipated by 
Wilkinson. On May 1, 1789, a balance of $6,251 due Wil- 
kinson was paid upon his order to Captain Abner Dunn, 
(brother of Isaac B. Dunn,) who examined the account, 
certified to its correctness, and receipted for the money ; 
and thus also that account was settled and closed.* This 
account did not include |6,000 which Ballinger, one of 
Wilkinson's friends and agents, carried up and delivered 
to him in Frankfort, that same year ; and it results that 
that sum loas not paid to him on account of any coynmercial 
transactions with the Spanish gDvernment, from which Bal- 
linger received it. There was another transaction, how- 
ever, during the same year, prior to the dissolution of the 
partnership. Clark had sent up the river on the joint 
account, a boat called the Speedwell, with a cargo amount- 
ing to about $8,000, which was not included in this settle- 
ment. Wilkinson agreed to invest the proceeds of the 
cargo in good tobacco and ship it to New Orleans, and 
when this was done, the partnership was to cease. This 
shipment was to have been made in December, 1789, but 
was not made until June, 1790; and in the meantime, 
since the preceding May, no other shipment had been 
made. The accounts of the sales of the Speedwell's cargo, 
as well as of the tobacco, were kept by Philip ]!^olan, 
Wilkinson's protege. The tobacco was sold to the Span- 
ish government; the net sum realized was $15,850. This 
account was also closed September 21, 1790, the profits 
were divided, Wilkinson's porticfn was paid to and re- 
ceipted for by ]N"olan, who applied it to the payment of Wil- 
kinson's debts, which were as numerous as his creditors 
were clamorous. In the settlement an error of $473 
against Clark was discovered, which was certified to by 
!N"olan, but the amount was never paid by Wilkinson. 
That none of the money he was proved to have received 
from the Spanish government after he went into the army 
was due from any of his commercial transactions up to 



Ibid, page 57 



326 The Spamsli Conspiracy. 

September 1, itOO, is proved by these accounts. The next 
year Wilkinson formed a partnership with Peyton Short,* 
which, their ventures being unfortunate, completed the 
bankruptcy of Wilkinson's already desperate fortunes, 
while Short never recovered from the embarrassment en- 
tailed by his brief commercial connection with the most 
greedy and unscrupulous of adventurers. Neither the 
accounts of Short nor those of Dunn gave any clew to 
any debts in IS'ew Orleans remaining due to the firms in 
which they were associated with Wilkinson, nor to any 
tobacco they had in storage there or anywhere else, 
whether damaged or sound. With Wilkinson's appoint- 
ment to the army, in 1791, all his commercial ventures 
ceased. His claim, that the various sums paid to him by 
the Spanish government after that time, amounting to 
many thousands of dollars, were in payment of damaged 
tobacco shipped to New Orleans in 1789, and stored in 
that city since that time, was proved by the accounts of 
his several firms to have been a fraud as transparent and 
impudent as his treason was flagrant. The conclusion is 
irresistible, that, in fulfillment of the written promise given 
on the faith of the Spanish king, by Miro, in 1790, they 
were the reward of treason which commenced in 1787 ; 
that, having been already in the employ of Spain as the 



® This gentleman came of an excellent and prominent Virginian fam- 
ily. He came early to the west, bringing with him a much larger share 
of this world's goods than generally belonged to his contemporaries. 
He married a daughter of Judge John Cleves Symmes — her sister was 
the wife of General William 'Henry Harrison. His wife's mother was 
one of the gifted Livingston family of the east, who in this country 
have added honors to a name which ranks high in the annals of Scot- 
land. A brother of Peyton Short, — William— was for years engaged in 
the diplomatic service of the United States. Accumulating a large for- 
tune, and dying unmarried, he left his estate to his nephews, the late 
Judge William Short, of Cincinnati, and the late Dr. Charles W. Short, 
of Louisville. Wilkinson went into the army in debt to Peyton Short 
and to many others, availed himself of his official position to evade and 
delay payment, but was finally forced to a settlement with Short by the 
celebrated James Hughes, whom he had attempted to bully in 1788. 
Others were not so fortunate in ever securing their dues. He "trans- 
lated to himself the property " of all who permitted that operation. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 327 

agent of that power in its projects for the division of our 
country, the recommendations of Miro that he should be 
^^ retained" in that service on an " annual pension " were 
efiective, and that the payment of the pension was then 
commenced. 

Needing a trusty agent to go to i^ew Orleans to convey 
to him the wages of his infamy, Wilkinson, who was then 
in the army and stationed at Fort Washington, in 1794 
applied to his friend, Hary Innes, who had removed from 
Danville to Frankfort and was the Judge of the Federal 
court, to recommend to him a man adapted for the secret 
and perilous service. A neighbor of Innes, one Henry 
Owen, was chosen, who thereupon proceeded to New Or- 
leans, and there received from the Baron de Carondelet 
^6,000 to be conveyed to Wilkinson. With this sum in 
charge Owen was .sent by Carondelet to New Madrid, 
with a letter to Portell, the commandant. By Portell he 
was embarked on a galliot commanded by Francis Lang- 
lois, and was conveyed to the mouth of the Ohio, all the 
territory on both banks of which river was within the 
United States. There he was provided by Langlois with a 
boat's crew of six men and was shipped with Wilkinson's 
money on a pirouge or canoe. While ascending the Ohio, 
and when within the territory and jurisdiction of the 
United States, he was murdered and robbed by his crew, 
on the Ohio river, near its northern shore, And thus within 
the jurisdiction of the state and Federal courts of Ken- 
tucky. Three of the murderers were afterwards arrested 
in the neighborhood of Frankfort, and were brought be- 
fore the Federal Judge, Innes, the friend of their victim, 
who refused to try them. In his History, Humphrey Mar- 
shall states that the ground of this refusal was that the 
murderers were " Spanish subjects," which, as every intel- 
ligent reader will comprehend, was as insufficient as it was 
ridiculous. But he " quietly committed them to the cus- 
tody of his brother-in-law, Charles Smith, who, with a 
little guard hired by the Judge, was directed to deliver 
them to General Wilkinson at Fort Washington. Smith 
was ordered by Wilkinson to convey them to the Spanish 



328 ■ The Spanish Conspiracy. 

commandant at New Madrid, and in complying with his 
instructions attempted to pass the American Fort Massac 
in the night. But the officer commanding at that post 
had been directed by General Wayne to watch the suspi- 
cious intercourse between Wilkinson and the Spaniards, 
and stopped the boat. He did not clearly perceive why 
felons who had murdered and robbed an American citi- 
zen, within American territory, should be thus smuggled 
away from the jurisdiction of American courts. Instead 
of permitting Smith to pass with the murderers he sent to 
Portell at New Madrid for an interpreter to interrogate 
them. The Spaniards were most unwilling that, by an 
investigation in an American court, the facts of the com- 
munication between Carondelet and Wilkinson should 
be developed, the interpreter did not divulge the confes- 
sions made by the villains, all evidence as to their guilt was 
withheld, and they were finally discharged. Marshall dis- 
tinctly intimates that the motive of Innes and Wilkinson, 
in thus endeavoring to ship those murderers to the Span- 
ish authorities, was, not only that they might be put to 
death summarily, but, chiefly, in order to suppress the ex- 
posure that might be the result of a public trial by an 
American court. Whether or not his inference was just, 
the facts he stated are clearly established. 

Colonel Brown, alluding to Daniel Clark's deposition in 
1808, says, that the statement made by the witness that he 
had knowledge that Wilkinson was receiving a Spanish 
pension as early as 1793 or 1794 is clearly an error ; that 
Clark seems to have regarded the $6,000 sent from New 
Orleans in Owen's care, as a pension fund ; but that the 
accounts between Wilkinson and Miro show this sum to 
have been a remittance due Wilkinson on his tobacco 
venture.* The facts already stated disprove this asser- 
tion. It is worthy of note, too, that the money " sent 
from New Orleans in Owen's care" was so sent by the 
Baron de Carondelet, direct from the Spanish treasury, 
nearly three years after Miro had left New Orleans for 

* Centennial Address, note at bottom of pages 10 and 17. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 329 

Spain. The reader will observe that Colonel Brown refers 
to the sum of which Owen was robbed as if that was the 
only amount mentioned by Clark's deposition as received 
by Wilkinson in payment of his pension. Of course, Col- 
onel Brown had read the deposition which he cited. If 
this reasonable supposition is correct, he had read in that 
deposition Clark's statement of the sum conveyed by 
Joseph Collins by the sea to ^qw York, and thence to 
Wilkinson at Fort Washington, where it was paid to Wil- 
kinson in the presence of his friend, John Brown, in 1795. 
Wilkinson refused to give a receipt for the money, -telling 
Collins that Brown was a witness that it had been paid. 
He had read in that deposition the statement of the money 
conveyed to Wilkinson by Thomas Power and of various 
other sums which Wilkinson received direct from the 
Spanish government between 1793 and 1797. But to have 
mentioned them w^ould, to say the least, have cast doubt 
upon his claim that the pension did not commence until 
1797, and that the sum of which Owen was robbed was 
due to Wilkinson by the estate of Miro, on account of his 
tobacco venture. All mention of them was, therefore, 
omitted from the reminiscences that enliven the Address. 
Whether or not the inference of Humphrey Marshall as 
to the motive of Judge Innes and General Wilkinson in 
refusing to try and hurrying the murderers of Owen out 
of the reach of American courts, was just ; — it is certain 
that Colonel Brow^n was of the opinion, that, if the murder 
was committed wdthin American jurisdiction, there could 
have been no sufficient or honest motive for the course 
pursued by the Federal judge and the Federal general, 
those familiar friends and coadjutors of John Brown in 
the times of 1788. In his judgment, evidently, if the facts 
stated by Marshall were admitted, there was no escape 
from his inference ; — if the premises were conceded, the 
conclusion naturally followed. Still, the course of Innes 
and Wilkinson must be defended. The emergency was, 
therefore, surmounted and the difficulty overcome, by the 
cool assertion, that the murder was perpetrated within 
Spanish territory, and, hence, of course, neither Innes nor 



330 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

any other American judge had jurisdiction. True, every 
book that had ever referred to the subject had stated that 
the murder was perpetrated within American territory. 
And Colonel Brown had read in Governor Greenup's depo- 
sition that he had " heard that this man was murdered on 
the Ohio." Yet the necessity of extricating Judge Innes 
from that affair seemed to be urgent. And the author, 
who afterwards represented the communication of A. K. 
Marshal] in the Western World of October 25, 1806, (only 
one copy of which paper is in existence) to have detailed 
the previous acquaintance between Connolly and Colonel 
Marshall, and to have stated that Connolly's visit was made 
in October, in order to show that Colonel Marshall had been 
influenced and won over by the Tory's overture ; — this 
orator and author was not to be daunted by petty difficul- 
ties when an old friend needed assistance. So, the reader 
of his Address finds at the bottom of page 10, a note in 
which this appears, viz : 

" The murderers of Owen {he was murdered in Spanish territory) were 
brought to Frankfort and kept under guard in the house of Jeremiah 
Gullion, which stood where the Methodist Church is now built on 
Washington street. There Judge Innes and Buckner Thruston (after- 
wards Senator) examined them. They were forwarded to the military 
commandant (Wilkinson) at Fort Washington (or Cincinnati), there 
being no treaty of extradition, nor any judicial power to commit, try or 
surrender them for a crime committed in a foreign jurisdiction" 

In support of this cool assertion Colonel Brown referred 
to the deposition of Buckner Thruston in the case of 
Innes v. Marshall, the original of which had been taken 
away from the Clerk's office at Harrodsburg, and was 
safely hidden in a box at the Polytechnic Library in Louis- 
ville, there being but two copies thereof in existence, one 
of which Colonel Brown had before him as he wrote. 
Said Colonel Brown : " The action of Judge Innes and 
his explanation of lack of judicial power \q detailed by Buck- 
ner Thruston in his deposition." The reader will now be 
curious to ascertain what Thruston said on the subject. 
It is here produced, viz : 

" That, being at Frankfort in the State of Kentucky, in the month of 
December, 1794, (as well as he remembers) during the sitting of the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 331 

Legislature, he understood that Governor Shelby had received a letter 
from the Spanish commandant at New Madrid, informing him of the 
murder of a certain Henry Owen, by some boatmen ivJio loere conducting 
the said Owemip the Ohio to Fort Washington, with a sum of money for 
General Wilkinson, and that the said boatmen had also robbed the said 
Owen and fled to Kentucky ; and requesting the governor, Shelby, to 
endeavor to have the said murderers apprehended ; that some days 
afterwards, three men who appeared to be Spaniards or Frenchmen, 
were brought to Frankfort aforesaid, supposed to be the same murderers 
mentioned in the said Spanish commandant's letter." 

Jii.dge Thruston continued : " It was generally under- 
stood (as this deponent verily believes) that the said mur- 
der had been perpetrated out of the State of Kentucky, 
viz : on the north-west side of the Ohio river, and (as this 
deponent thinks) it was so stated in the Spanish com- 
mandant's letter." Colonel Brown assuredly was not 
ignorant that the territory on both sides of the Ohio river 
was American, and had never been Spanish. The evidence 
of Thruston does not suggest, that there was the slightest 
doubt in his mind, that either the federal or the state 
courts of Kentucky had jurisdiction in this case ; — because, 
though he said the murder had been " committed out of 
the State of Kentucky," he immediately qualified that state- 
ment by the explanation, that what he meant was that it 
had been perpetrated " on the north-west side of the Ohio 
EiVER," which he knew, and which Colonel Brown very 
well knew, was within the jurisdiction of Kentucky, and of 
the federal district court therefor, which jurisdiction ex- 
tended then, as it does now, to low water mark on that side 
of the Ohio river. And, even had the state and federal 
courts of Kentucky possessed no jurisdiction of this of- 
fense, by reason of its having been perpetrated beyond 
that jurisdiction, in that case Judge Thruston knew, and 
Colonel Brown was fully aware, that the federal court for 
the territory of Illinois or that for Indiana, both of which 
were then in full operation, would have had plenary power 
in the premises ; — so that, if Innes had no power to try 
them, then the only proper and legal course to pursue was, 
to remand them until the proper measures could have 
been instituted for handing them over to the custody of 



332 The Si^anish Conspiracy. 

those who had tlie power and were charged with the duty 
of trying and punishing their crime. Instead of which, 
the Federal Judge, with an expedition and vigor which sel- 
dom marked his movements, hurried them oif to his friend 
Wilkinson, who, in turn, made an effort to hurry them 
out of the reach of all American authorities. It is true, 
that Judge Thruston deposed as his belief, that Innes in 
thus acting had "acted as an individual^ and not in his 
official character as a judge; in which latter character, this 
deponent does not think the said Innes had competent au- 
thority to take such steps." But it is manifest to the reader, 
that, whether Innes acted as a judge, or as an individual, 
his taking possession of the murderers and hurrying them 
away, had the same effect to prevent an examination by 
an American court. It is true, also, that Thruston ex- 
pressed his belief that Innes was actuated by " virtuous 
motives," and that he " concurred" in Innes' course "as 
the most probable way of bringing them to justice; which 
it Avas believed they would certainly meet with if they 
could be returned into the .hands of the said Spanish com- 
mandant." But if the author of " The Political Begin- 
nings " had himself been satisfied with tliis reasoning, he 
would have published what Thruston really testified, and 
would not, in the face of Thruston's deposition, have as- 
serted that the murder was committed within Spanish 
territory, and as proof of that assertion have referred to a 
deposition which he supposed would never be examined, 
and which flatly contradicted his own statement. 

Colonel Brown's address refers to Clark's deposition 
taken by order of Congress. He may, however, never 
have read Clark's publication in 1809. Let it be assumed 
that, in his explorations, he never did. Keverthless, the 
aflidavits of Langlois* and of Bouligny,* which appear in 

* " On this twenty-ninth day of December, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and eight, personally appeared before me, the under- 
signed, one of the justices of the peace for the county of Orleans, Mon- 
sieur Francis Langlois, a citizen of the United States and resident of 
New Orleans, who, being duly sworn on the Holy Bible, did depose and 
say, that in the year 1794 he was a lieutenant of militia, in the service 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 333 

that publication, fully sustain Marshall and Greenup and 
Thruston, that the murder was perpetrated within Amer- 
ican territory, and within the jurisdiction of American 
courts, and flatly contradict and disprove Colonel Brown's 



of his Catholic Majesty, and commanded the gaUiot the Flecha, then 
on station at New Madrid, having under his orders the gunboat the 
Taureau and batteau the Prince of Asturias ; that whilst there a Mr. 
Owens arrived from New Orleans with a sum of money, entrusted to 
him by the Baron de Carondelet, to be delivered to General Wilkinson 
somewhere on the Ohio, and this deponent had direction from the said 
Baron de Carondelet to take measures, in concert with Don Thomas 
Portell, the commandant at New Madrid, and the aforesaid Owens, to 
have the sum entrusted to the charge of this latter conveyed in safety 
to its destination— in consequence thereof this deponent, at a council 
held at New Madrid, by Portell, Owens and himself, recommended that 
resident citizens of that place should be employed to accompany Owens, 
but his opinion was overruled by Portell and Owens, who thought it 
would be more economical, and consequently more agreeable to the 
Spanish Government, to have a boat's crew furnished from the galliot 
of this deponent, which he furnished ; and further he deposes, that the 
sum of six thousand dollars, which had been brought by Owens from 
New Orleans to New Madrid, and by him delivered to Don Thomas 
Portell, the commandant of the fort, was by Portell embarked on board the 
galliot of this deponent, to be conveyed to the mouth of the Ohio, at which place 
he furnished Owens with a patron, named Pepello, and six of his oarsmen, 
and shipped in his canoe the before mentioned sum of six thousand dollars, to be 
delivered to General Wilkinson; and he declares that the sum was 
packed by himself in three small barrels, but being apprehensive of 
some bad design on the part of Owens' crew, he took back the money 
into his galliot, and retained it twenty-four hours in his possession, 
when, at Owens' pressing solicitations, he re-delivered it to him, who then 
departed with it, and some short time afterwards he learned that Owens 
had been murdered by his crew, and the money made away with by 
them ; and further he, this deponent, declares that he afterwards ar- 
rested, and sent to New Orleans for trial, one Vexerano, one of Owens' 
crew, who was concerned in the murder of said Owens and the plunder 
of the money. He further deposes, that, although it was agreed between 
the Spanish Government and Owens, to save appearances, that the money 
should appear to belong to said Owens, yet he knows it was sent by the Ba- 
ron de Carondelet, for the use of, and to be delivered to. General Wilkinson, and 
that knowing the interest which the Spanish Government had in this 
transaction, he wrote an ofticial account to the Baron de Carondelet of 
the part he had taken in it, and the advice he had given respecting the 
conveyance of the money safely to its destination, and in reply the Ba- 
ron regretted that his advice had not beeii followed in every particular , 
and the deponent further declares, that Owens had no other money 



334 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

statement that it was perpetrated in Spanish territory ; — 
which is without any authority whatever, and originated 
in what he apparently deemed the urgency of his case. 
How desperate that case seemed to him ; how inevita- 
ble the damaging inference of Marshall from the certain 
and proven facts appeared to the calm judgment and 
alert perception of the author of the Address, is made 
patent by the tremendous efforts put forth to avoid what 
impressed him as the justice of that conclusion. 

No difficulty daunts a man who is conscious of his own 
genius. In the "Political Beginnings" Colonel Brown 
obliterated space by making John Brown, (who was in 
Danville at the time,) " representing Kentucky in the Vir- 
ginia Senate," procure from that body the passage of the 
resolutions of 1786 relating to the Mississippi. In the 
same book he annihilated time, by making the same John 



than the six thousand dollars above mentioned. In testimony of which 
he has signed, 



F. Langlois." 



D. BouLiGNY, Justice of Peace. 



" On the 16th day of the month of January, in the year 1809, per- 
sonally appeared before me, the undersigned, a justice of peace for 
the city of New Orleans, Monsieur Dominique Bouligny, formerly ad- 
jutant-major of the Regiment of Louisiana, in the service of his Catho- 
lic Majesty, and now a member of the Legislature of the Territory of 
Orleans, who, being duly sworn on the Holy Bible, did depose and say, 
that in the year 1795, as well as he can remember, he exercised the func- 
tions of adjutant-major in the regiment of Louisiana, and was commis- 
sioned by the Governor, the Baron de Carondelet, to conduct the trial 
of one Pepillo, who was accused of having been one of the authors of 
the death of Mr. Henry Owens, {who had been assassinated on the Ohio, in 
the American territory,) and of the robbery of a sum of money, of which 
this Mr. Owens was the bearer to General Wilkinson, and which had 
been delivered to him by the Spanish Government. And he has further de- 
clared, that it was public and well knotun among the officers under the Spanish 
Government that General Wilkinson was a pensioner of the Spanish Govern- 
ment, and that the major part of the people in office believed that there 
was no reliance to be placed on the promises which the General made 
to the Government, because they could not persuade themselves that 
his influence could induce the people of the Western States to separate 
from the American Confederation. 

(Signed) D. Bouligny. 

Sworn to and affirmed before me, 

F. DuTiLLET, Justice of the Peace." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 335 

Brown first learn in March, 1787, the " news of Jay's pro- 
ject," of which he had information in the December pre- 
vious; and made him ignorant until May, 1787, of the 
very resolutions the passage of which he alleged John 
Brown had procured in the preceding l^ovember. But, 
before these achievements, he had, in the Centennial Ad- 
dress, proved himself far greater than Archimedes. For, 
from the amazing fertility of the resources of his own 
creative genius he produced the fulcrum, and in a quill 
plucked from a goose he found the lever, with which he 
moved to the " north-west side " of the placid and beautiful 
Ohio, the old Spanish Province of Louisiana, from its se- 
cure foundations west of the turbid and swift-flowing 
Mississippi ! To a genius so wonderful the vindication of 
John Brown and Hary Innes, which others found impos- 
sible and abandoned in disgust, was but the pleasant pas- 
time of a summer day. 



336 The S-panish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XX. 



Colonel Brown's Statement that there was no Communication Be- 
tween Wilkinson and Sebastian Disproved — The Former Impor- 
tunes FOR Pay in 1790 — Wilkinson Forwards the Letter to Miro, 
who Sends it to Madrid, with a Recommendation that Both 
Should be Pensioned — Sebastian Detected and Forced to Resign 
— Critical State of Affairs in America — The Efforts of Wash- 
ington to Secure the Navigation of the Mississippi Impeded by 
these Intrigues with Spain — Carondelet Renews the Old In- 
trigues — Thomas Power the Agent — The Proposition Implying 
Separation from the United States Made by Carondelet in 1795 
— Sebastian, Carrying a Letter from Nicholas, Innes and Mur- 
ray, Goes to See what it Means— For that, Sebastian Pretends, 
He is Pensioned — Carondelet Sends Money to Wilkinson — Pow- 
er's Visits to Wilkinson and Receives Details from Him to be 
Communicated to Carondelet — The Spaniards Anxious not to 
Carry Out the Treaty — Renewed Attempt to Separate the West 
from the United States— Carondelet's Proposition of 1797 — It 
Directly Expresses what was Plainly Implied in that op 1795 — 
The Bribes Offered — Innes Consults with Nicholas, who Rejects 
THE Proposition — Their Mild Answer fo Carondelet — Wilkinson 
Deems it too Late— Spain had Ruined every thing by Giving the 
Navigation of the Mississippi in the Treaty. 

In the Centennial Address, page 35, it is asserted, as 
shown by the evidence, that " there were not more than 
two consx)irators — Wilkinson and Sebastian;" and that 
" It does not seem that they communicated.'" The orator, 
as he stated, had consulted and liberally used Gayarre in 
the preparation of that Address. In that History, never- 
theless, is printed Sebastian's own letter to Wilkinson, 
under date of January 5th, 1790, in which the former thus 
wrote : * 

"As my attention to this affair takes up the greater portion of my 
time, and prevents me from following any other pursuit, I certainly 
hope to obtain from the Spanish Government at least some indemnifica- 
tion, if not a generous reward for my services. On principle, I am as much 
attached to the interests of Louisiana as any one of the subjects of his 



* Gayarre, pages 275-6. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 337 

Catholic Majesty. But yon know that my circumstances do not permit 
me to engage in hin service and to abandon every other occupation, without 
the prospeet of remuneration ^ 

This letter was immediately forwarded by Wilkinson to 
Miro, to whom he wrote on the 26th of January, 1790, re- 
ferring to the convention to meet in June of that year. 

" I will pay strict attention to its proceedings, and I will present my- 
self to that assembly, with the intention of doing all that may be in my 
power, to promote the interest of our cause, in which I shall be warmly 
assisted by our good friend, Sebastian, who is now my principal aid, because, 
although Harry Innes is also our friend, yet the office he holds renders it 
improper for him to work openly." •■■ 

Miro forwarded the letters of Wilkinson and of Sebas- 
tian to Madrid, with the expression of the opinion that 
" said brigadier-general ought to be retained in the service 
of his majesty, ivith an annual pension of two thousand dol- 
lars, which I have already proposed in my confidential 
dispatch 'No. 46," and with the recommendation that a 
pension should also be granted to Sebastian, f Colonel 
Brown could scarcely have failed to read those letters in 
Gayarre. His statement that " it does not seem that they 
communicated " is about as true as his assertion that the 
evidence shows that they were the only conspirators ; and 
neither requires any comment. 

When Wilkinson's letter of January 26, 1790, was writ- 
ten, a marked change had taken place in the temper of 
the people of the district towards the Federal Govern- 
ment, owing to the confidence and hope inspired by the 
wise and firm administration of Washington. The in- 
creased strength of the government of the new Union, 
under a constitution which gave its legislature the power 
to enact, and to its judiciary and executive the means to 
enforce laws, made the intriguers draw back, and aroused 
in them a sense of personal danger to be incurred in the 
pursuit of those projects. Brown, the most timid and 
cautious of all, had, probably, by this time detached him- 



* Gayarre, page 279. 
t Ibid, page 286. 
22 



338 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

self from the Spanish interest. Wilkinson in this letter 
wrote : 

" At present all our politicians seem to have fallen asleep. Buoyed 
up by the privilege of trade which has been granted to them on the 
Mississippi, the people think of nothing else than cultivating their lands 
and increasing their plantations. In such circumstances it is impossible 
that I should, with any chance of success press upon them the import- 
ant question which I had proposed to myself on my arrival here. 

" I am justified in saying that Congress strongly suspects my connec- 
tion with you, and that it spies my movements in this section of the 
country. Consequently an avowed intention on my part to induce 
these people here to separate from the Union, before the majority of 
them show a disposition to support me, would endanger my personal 
security, and would deprive me of the opportunity of serving you in 
these parts. My situation is mortally painful, because whilst I abhor 
all duplicity, I am obliged to dissemble. This makes me extremely de- 
sirous of resorting to some contrivance that will put me in a position in 
which I flatter myself to be able to profess myself publicly the vassal 
of his Catholic Majesty, and therefore to claim his protection, in what- 
ever public or private measures I may devise to promote the interest of 
the Crown." » 

The " privilege of trade " to which the conspirator re- 
ferred was one permitting the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi below onr boundaries and trade with Louisiana to all, 
on payment of an ad valorum duty of fifteen per cent. 
Against this, as well as against every relaxation of the 
most rigid occlusion of the Mississippi, to all save himself 
and confederates, the correspondence shows that Wilkin- 
son, from the beginning, vehemently protested, as a sur- 
rendering of the lever by which alone the Spaniards might 
force tbe separation of the west from the United States. 
And, beyond peradventure, the eifect of his arguments, 
and of the various movements of the men whom he led, 
was the most serious embarrassment experienced by Wash- 
ington in the negotiations he immediately inaugurated for 
securing to the west the rights so invaluable to her people. 
Those movements, and the hopes engendered by Wilkin- 
son's arguments, caused the Spaniards to delay for years 
their accession to the treaty which was concluded in 1795 ; 
and, but for the pressure and harassments entailed by the 
revolution in France, would have altogether defeated all 
of Washington's exertions in behalf of the people of the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 339 

west, which were unremitting and most active at the 
very time he was most fiercely assailed by demagogues ; 
some of whom desired an alliance with Spain, while oth- 
ers sought to involve us in war in behalf of, and to make 
America subservient to, the Government of the Guillotine. 
It was in the same letter from which the above is quoted, 
that Wilkinson wrote of the appointment of Innes by 
Washington, construing it as one intended to secure the 
fidelity of his friend, in whose behalf he asserted a prefer- 
ence for a pension from New Orleans over one from New 
York. His own appointment he doubtless attributed to 
the same motive ; — the construction would have been the 
proper one. 

That Sebastian was pensioned by Spain was incontestibly 
established. The clear light cast upon the subject by the 
archives of that power ; his demand, so early as 1790, for 
compensation for his efibrts to separate Kentucky from 
the Union ; the recommendation of Miro then made that 
this request should be granted and Sebastian be regularly 
employed in the service of Spain, — create a presumption 
that can not be overcome by the statement of so utterly 
false a man to the contrary, that Miro's advice was 
heeded, and that the pension commenced when that advice 
was given in 1790. His actions then indicated to many 
that he was not only a secret agent of Spain, but that he 
was the dishonorable stipendiary of that power. As he 
was appointed a judge of the court of appeals by Shelby^ 
in 1792, what was apparent to others could not have been 
credited by the rough fighting executive, who had flanked 
Cornstalk at Crooked Creek, and laid Ferguson low at 
King's Mountain. But, whatever the time when that 
pension commenced, and whatever the service for which 
it was paid, Sebastian, while a judge of the court of ap- 
peals, continued to receive it, until the fact was publicly 
exposed in 1806, when, pending an investigation by the 
legislature which looked to his impeachment, and in order 
to stop the inquiry, he resigned the office which he had 
disgraced. 

While never entirely abandoned, either from the expec- 



340 The Spanish Co7}spiracy. 

tation that he would soon be recalled to Spain, or from a 
doubt of their success, the intrigues of Miro to dismember 
the Union, manifestly slackened in 1791. The communi- 
cation with Wilkinson, who was occupied on the part of the 
Spaniards in various schemes of colonizing Louisiana, was 
steadily maintained. The commercial ventures of the lat- 
ter had met with their final shipwreck, and in the fall of 
the year named, he was appointed to a Lieutenant Colon- 
elcy in the army of the United States. On the 30th of 
December, Miro, after a successful and benign administra- 
tion, which had won the hearts of the Louisianians, and 
completely reconciled them to the Spanish domination, 
was succeeded as governor by the Baron de Caroudelet. 
He immediately sailed for Spain, where his brilliant mili- 
tary career won for him the baton of a Marescal de Cam.po, 
or Lieutenant General. His successor was a native of 
Flanders, but by acknowledged ability, activity and zeal, 
had risen to the rank of a Colonel in the royal army. His 
attention was at first occupied with the domestic compli- 
cations of his province, arising from the turbulence of 
Bowles and others, but he soon resumed the communica- 
tion with Wilkinson which had been interrupted by the 
departure of Miro. 

In the meantime the war of factions in the United States, 
the hostilities with the Indians, and foreign complications, 
rendered the condition of the country so extremely criti- 
cal, that Jefierson and Hamilton, who agreed in nothing 
else, were convinced that the firm hand of Washington 
alone could guide the ship of state and save it from wreck. 
Not only were the measures of his administration bitterly 
assailed, and his wise eftbrts to avoid entanglement with 
the wars by which Europe was convulsed, denounced as a 
manifestation of his purpose to establish a monarchy in 
America, but he was personally attacked with the coarsest 
vituperation, or, to use his own language, "in such exag- 
gerated and indecent terms, as could scarcely be applied to 
a Nero, to a notorious defaulter or even to a common pick- 
pocket." These assaults were made under the immediate 
patronage and auspices of the " Democratic societies " 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 341 

which were organized in diiFerent parts of the United 
States, and were modeled after the Jacobin Clubs of Paris, 
of which Robespierre was at once the type and the idol. 
While loudly clamoring against the government because 
the executive honestly maintained neutrality in the wars 
of Europe, these clubs denounced and every-where encour- 
aged resistance to the taxes which were indispensable to 
provide the means for maintaining public credit and to 
carry on the ordinary operations of government. The 
agents of the revolutionary government of France were 
engaged in an effort to separate the people of the United 
States from their own government, to incite them to open 
revolt against that government, and, in defiance of the 
proclamations of the President, to organize an army 
within the territory of the United States, to make war 
upon the Spanish in Louisiana, and to reduce that prov- 
ince once more to the French dominion. In all the insult- 
ing defiance with which these emissaries treated the au- 
thority and government of the United States, the}^ were 
openly encouraged and sustained by the Democratic so- 
cieties. Finally an insurrection against the government 
broke out in Pennsylvania, to resist the excise tax, in such 
formidable dimensions that an army under the command 
of General Lee was embodied and sent to quell the armed 
force which haql organized to overthrow the authority of 
law. "While there was no outbreak in Kentucky, much 
was done to inflame the people to a similar movement. 
" Genet (the French minister) had speculated on the preju- 
dices of the western people, and had sent, particularly to 
Kentucky and Tennessee, active, enthusiastic and intelli- 
gent agents, who, circulating among the hardy population 
and the remotest pioneers of the west, discoursed glibly 
on the innumerable advantages which would accrue to 
these people, if they separated frora the rest of the United 
States, if they helped to enfranchise Louisiana by an inva- 
sion, and if they formed with her an alliance under the protec- 
tion of France'^ [Gayarre.] George R. Clark was com- 
missioned a General in the army of the French Republic 
and issued his proclamation calling for volunteers. 



342 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Carondelet at once organized the military forces of 
Louisiana for defense, fortified J^ew Orleans and the other 
strong places on the Mississippi, and in all respects proved 
himself a man of sleepless vigilance and an executive of 
ability and energy. " ISTot trusting entirely to these means 
of defense, he had recourse to the politic arts of the diplo- 
matist, and in order to appease the hostility of the West- 
ern people, he removed some of the restrictions which 
cramped their trade, granted again important privileges 
to some enterprising and influential men among them, and 
prepared himself to renew Miro's former scheme of win- 
ning over that restless and energetic population to the 
dominion of Spain, The firm and loyal interference of 
Washington prevented the attack which was threatened 
from the Ohio districts, checked the intrigues of Genet, 
and relieved the apprehensions of the Spanish authorities 
in Louisiana." In the meantime, Washington also sent 
James Innes to Kentucky to explain to Governor Shelby 
that, while the details of his negotiations had not been 
publicly divulged, yet the situation of Kentucky had en- 
gaged his attention from the moment of his inauguration, 
his resolute determination never to sacrifice nor abandon 
her interests, the constant efforts he had made to secure to 
her people the enjoyment of their right to navigate the 
Mississippi, and his confident expectation that a treaty 
recognizing that right would soon be concluded. The 
reader has seen how these movements in the West, and 
the hopes Spain builded thereon, was the constant obstacle 
that impeded the accomplishment of the President's per- 
sistent efforts. 

As soon as the danger of an invasion had passed away, 
Carondelet began again " to throw impediments in the way 
of the western trade, which he had temporarily favored, 
and again imposed restrictions calculated to facilitate the 
operations of those agents whom he had sent to Kentucky 
to tempt the people into a separation from the United 
States and an alliance with Spain, by which the much de- 
sired outlet of the Mississippi could be secured to them," 
It has been seen that the times Avere highly auspicious for 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 343 

the intrigues of Spain. The irritation in Kentucky and 
Tennessee against the Federal Government because it could 
not secure to them the navigation of the Mississippi, which 
Wilkinson had urged the Spaniards never to concede ; the 
whisky insurrection in Pennsylvania; the war with the 
Indians, all of whom were engaged in open hostilities ; 
the embarrassments of the negotiations with Great Britain, 
Spain and France ; and then the assaults of the Democratic 
societies and their press, exciting the people against their 
own government and undermining their confidence in the 
illustrious patriot who was at its head, all combined to 
render the situation precarious. 

The chief emissary chosen by Carondelet was Thomas 
Power, an Englishman by birth, but naturalized a Spanish 
subject, — a man at once intelligent, bold and cautious. As 
stated by Gayarre, he came to Kentucky " under the pre- 
tense of collecting materials for a natural history of that 
section of the country, but really to revive with Wilkinson^ 
Innes, Sebastian and others, the plots which had been car- 
ried on under Miro's administration." Reports made by 
Power to Carondelet of the disposition towards the gen- 
eral government of a number of leading citizens of Ken- 
tucky, some of whom the latter knew to have formerly 
been engaged in a secret correspondence with Miro, in- 
duced in the Spanish governor the hope that he might 
now successfully renew the intrigues of his predecessor. 
Gayoso de Lemos, Governor of J^atchez, was chosen for 
the delicate mission, and Power was dispatched in the fall 
of 1795 to make the necessary arrangements with Sebas- 
tian, Innes, and others. He carried with him a letter from 
Carondelet to Sebastian, which he delivered to the latter. 
Sebastian undertook to confer with Innes, William 
Murray and George Nicholas, to whom he was requested 
by Carondelet to communicate the contents of his letter, 
and Power proceeded to Cincinnati to deliver to General 
Wilkinson a letter from Sebastian. This letter apprised 
Wilkinson, who was then Brigadier-General of the Amer- 
ican army, of the new eftbrts to carry out the old scheme 
in which both had been formerly engaged. According to 



344 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

the sworn statement of Power, Wilkinson then made 
known to him " the whole plot, which was a separation of 
the Western from the Eastern States, snch as was developed 
in Sebastian's trial." After a number of conferences with 
Wilkinson, in wliich the matter was discussed, PoAver re- 
turned to Red Banks, there met Sebastian, who had, in 
the meantime, consulted witli Innes, Murray, and Nich- 
olas, and had gone with their concurrence to meet Gayoso, 
in accordance with the request conveyed in the letter of 
Carondelet, and with him went to IvTew Madrid, where 
Gayoso awaited them. 

Eeyond peradventure this was, as stated by the histori- 
ans, Gayarre and Martin, by Clark and by Power, but a 
reopening of the plan of dismemberment which had been 
entered upon some years before by Miro and A¥ilkinson, 
and had been "discussed" between Gardoqui and John 
Brown. The grant of the navigation of the Mississippi 
was, as formerly, the inducement oft'ered by Spain, and 
the dismemberment of the United States was the object 
Spain sought to effect. The terms of Carondelet's letter 
to Sebastian are known only so far as the alleged copy 
thereof in the handwriting of Sebastian reveal them. The 
letter is here published as it aytpears in the deposition of 
Innes before the committee which investigated Sebastian 

in 1806, viz : 

New Orleans, July 1(5, 179o. 

Sir : — The confidence reposed in yon by my predecessor, Brigadier- 
general Miro, and your former correspondence with him, have induced 
me to make a communication to j^ou, liighly interesting to the covntri/ in 
which you live, and to Louisiana. 

His majesty being willing to open the navigation of the Mississippi 
to the people of the Western country ; and being also desirous to establish 
certain regulations, reciprocally beneficial to the commerce of both 
countries, has ordered me to proceed on the business and to effect in a 
way the most satisfactory to the people of the Wedern country his benevo- 
lent design. 

I have, therefore, made this communication to you, in expectation 
that you will procure agents to be chosen and fully empowered by the people of 
your country to negotiate with Colonel Gayoso on the subject, at New 
Madrid, whom I shall send there in October next, properly authorized 
for that purpose, with directions to continue at that place, or its vicinity, 
until the arrival of your agents. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 345 

I am, by information, well acquainted with the character of some of 
the most reputable inhabitants of Kentucky, particularly of Innes, 
Nicholas, and Murray, to whom, I wish you to communicate the pur- 
port of this address, and should you and these gentlemen, think the ob- 
ject of it as important as I do, you will doubtless accede, without hesi- 
tation, to the proposition I have made, of sending a delegation of your 
countrymen, sufficiently authorized to treat on a subject which so deeply 
involves the interest of both our countries. 

I remain, with every esteem and regard. Sir, your most obedient, 
humble servant, 

The Baron of Carondelet. 

The reader will not fail to note that no mention is made 
in this missive of the United States, nor is there any refer- 
ence in it to the people of the western country as a com- 
ponent part of the Union. It clearly relates to them as a 
people of a country distinct and separate from any other 
— a people who had the power to negotiate treaties, which 
the Spaniard knew, as well as Innes and Sebastian knew 
it, that no state of the Union possessed. The letter did 
not invite those gentlemen to come to New Madrid to 
converse or confer with Gayoso in regard to the terms of 
concessions intended to be made to the people of the 
United States or of any part thereof; but to send persons 
duly authorized and empoivered by the people of the ivestern 
country, as a distinct country, to negotiate a treaty in which 
it was proposed to grant to the people of that country 
valuable privileges. A separation from the Union by the 
people to whom this grant was to have been made was 
plainly implied in every line of the communication. It 
was so understood by Carondelet and his agent, by Wil- 
kinson and Sebastian, according to Power's testimony, 
and by the historians who had access to the facts. The 
reference by Carondelet to the correspondence that had 
" formerly " passed between Miro and Sebastian, and to 
the " confidence " the Spanish Intendant had reposed in 
the Kentucky judge, will remind the reader of the records 
published by Gayarre. If he was not the most forgetful 
of men this reference must have been pregnant with sug- 
gestion to Innes. The king who had so persistently re- 
fused to entertain any treaty with the United States which 
did not expressly abandon all claim to the right to navi- 



346 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

gate the Mississippi by any part of their people, was yet 
willing to " open that navigation to the people of the 
western country!" "Therefore," instead of concluding 
a treaty with the United States, which the government 
had urged ever since independence had been obtained, 
and which Spain had most obstinately refused to consider, 
unless the right to that navigation was abandoned ; — 
" therefore, I have made this communication to you" 
known to me, by your correspondence with Miro, to have 
been engaged with him in a plot to separate Kentucky 
from the Union, " in expectation that you will procure 
agents to be chosen and fully emjyowered by the people of 
your country to negotiate with Colonel Gayoso, at New 
Madrid!" To minds of ordinary sagacity it must liave 
been apparent at once, that this proposition, secretly made 
to individuals, that ^Ae peoT^^e of the country in which they 
lived should appoint agents to treat and negotiate with a 
foreign power, concerning the concession of privileges 
which that power had refused to grant to, or even to treat 
of with, the government to which they owed allegiance, 
must of necessity cover an ulterior, sinister and illicit de- 
sign, which no citizen, much less state and Federal judges, 
could consider without gross impropriety. That Sebastian 
well knew what that design was is certain. To Innes, 
who, in 1787, bad written to Governor Eandolph that in a 
few years Kentucky would " Revolt from the Union," and 
who had struck those words out of the alleged copy of the 
letter containing them which he published in Littell ; — to 
Innes, who knew from Wilkinson the engagements he had 
formed with Miro, and from John Brown's letters, if not 
from Brown's own lips, the nature of the proposition of 
Gardoqui, which had been frustated in the Danville con- 
vention, and yet made no mention of those engagements, 
nor of that proposition, nor of the memorial of Wilkin- 
son, nor of Brown's speech, in his letter to Washington ; 
— to Innes, it is scarcely possible that the letter of Caron- 
delet to Sebastian did not suggest that its diplomatic 
phraseology covered a renewal of the old schemes of dis- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 347 

In his testimony before the leg'islative committee, Judge 
Innes asserted that, while it was not deemed prudent to 
communicate the subject-matter of Carondelet's letter to 
the people, "yet, that it was advisable to know what was 
the object of the Spanish Government upon that import- 
ant subject;" — which, certainly, was sufficiently obvious, 
not only from what had preceded the letter, but from the 
very terms of the letter itself. " To accomplish this ob- 
ject," he said, " it was thought advisable, that as the com- 
munication was made to Mr. Sebastian, he ought to meet 
Colonel Gayoso ; and in consequence of this opinion, Mr. 
Sebastian descended the Ohio." Sebastian himself stated, 
in his deposition in the case of Lines v. Marshall, that he 
carried with him a " written opmo?i,"* signed by Nicholas, 
Innes, Murray and himself, " relative to the situation of 
the two countries " — Louisiana and " The Western coun- 
try " — " and the advantage that would result to both from 
amicable intercourse." Gayoso was disappointed at the 
absence of the others, which Sebastian explained : Innes 
could not leave his courts, and the absence of Nicholas, 
a lawyer in large practice, would excite too much atten- 
tion ; he had come authorized to act for all. According 
to his own account, as subsequently given to Governor 
Greenup, and as detailed by Innes in his testimony before 
the Committee of Investigation, he then proceeded to ar- 
range with Gayoso the terms of the proposed concession 
by the King of Spain to the people of the Western country^ 
of the right of navigating the Mississippi, which he and 
Innes alike represented to have been simply an act of 
magnanimous conciliation on the part of his Catholic 
Majesty, without the expectation of any return from 
them other than might spring from the cultivation of 
mutual good will between these people and those of the 
Spanish provinces ! But why that good will might not 
just as well have been cultivated by making this conces- 
sion in a treaty with the United States, instead of by 



*Sebastian was asked to produce the original of this " written opin- 
ion," the terms of which would certainly have been interesting ; but, 
of course, it was not accessible to the witness, and was never produced. 



348 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

means of this alleged private arrangement, which, on its 
own face, was partial and invidious and exclusive of all 
the rest of their countrymen, never was and never can be 
satisfactorily explained. On his return, in 1796, Sebas- 
tian, according to the testimony of Innes, informed him 
that Gayoso proposed to reduce the duty required from 14 
to 4 per cent; but to this he had objected, insisting that 
the concession being a gracious act of conciliation by the 
king, the navigation should be made absolutely free. Gay- 
oso remaining fixed, Sebastian proceeded with him to 
New Orleans, to refer the matter to Carondelet, who sup- 
ported the latter, but could not immediately attend to the 
definite arrangement of terms. 

In his testimony before the Committee of Investigation, 
Judge Innes presented a paper which he said had been 
given to him by Sebastian as containing the concessions 
proposed by Gayoso, which was in Sebastian's handwrit- 
ing. From this paper it appeared that the King of Spain 
'' had been pleased to cede to the people of the Western 
country, during his pleasure," certain privileges ; among 
which were the use and enjoyment, " for the purpose of 
commerce, of the navigation of the river Mississippi ; and 
all the posts and places thereon, under the Government of 
his Catholic Majesty, subject to the same regulations and 
restrictions, and no other, by which the commerce of the 
subjects of his Catholic Majesty is now governed." The 
importation of any articles into the Spanish territory 
which " were not the actual production of the said West- 
ern country, was absolutely prohibited ;" which excluded 
all the rest of the United States from the benefit of this 
very peculiar treaty. It was never the intention of Spain 
to grant these privileges to the " Western country " so 
long as it continued to be a part of the United States. 
Separation therefrom was necessarily implied in every line 
of the letter of Carondelet and of the terms of the pro- 
posed concession. The reader will agree with Butler, 
that, even in the light in which these men claimed that it 
should be regarded, " this proposal, if it had been consum- 
mated, would have amounted to superseding the regular 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 349 

operations of the General Government in the Western 
commerce; and would have granted exclusive commercial 
favors to the parties in this agreement, inconsistent with 
the equal constitutional rights of the citizens of a common 
country. It would, moreover, have been the introduction of 
a foreign influence, dangerous to the liberty and peace of the 
nation" 

In a day or two, however, news of the treaty of friend- 
ship, limits and navigation between the United States and 
Spain, of the prospect of which Washington had sent in- 
formation by James Innes in 1794, and which had been 
concluded by John Jay on the part of the United States 
the preceding August, reached New Orleans ; — which su- 
perseded this very nice and extremely innocent private 
and individual negotiation. Urging that the treaty might 
never be carried into effect, Sebastian insisted that Caron- 
delet should sign the terms of the concessions to the 
" people of the Western country." This Carondelet re- 
fused to do, but informed Sebastian, as the latter claimed, 
that he had been instructed to pay to the person who 
should come on that business, the sum of $2,000, and that 
an annual pension of that amount would be paid to him 
thereafter. For making this journey; receiving this vol- 
untary, gratuitous, magnanimous, and, as they represented 
it, most extraordinary and incredible concession from 
Spain to a portion of the people of the United States, 
which that power had, ever since 1783, haughtily denied 
to the whole ; and for drawing up the details of this 
grant, by which, according to their representations, Spain 
gave all and expected to receive nothing, the detected 
pensioner alleged, and his friend, the Federal judge, pro- 
fessed to believe, that the Court of Madrid, pressed with 
debt and with a commerce devastated by ruinous war, had 
paid Sebastian a pension of $2,000 per annum since 1795, 
amounting in the aggregate to $22,000 ! 

Gayoso and Sebastian were accompanied from New 
Madrid to JSTew Orleans by Thomas Power, who went for 
the purpose of receiving from Carondelet a round sum of 
money for Wilkinson, which the latter awaited in impa- 



350 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tient expectation. But it had already been sent to Yin- 
cente Folch for delivery to Portell, the commandant at 
New Madrid, who was directed to hold it subject to the 
orders of Wilkinson. Power went with Sebastian by sea 
to New York, and thence, after again seeing Wilkinson, 
back again to NeAV Madrid, where he had great difficulty 
in inducing Portell to deliver to him the money designed 
for Wilkinson without a written order from the latter. 
The reasons why an American general involved in a 
treasonable cons[)iracy, should refuse to give such an order 
were made plain to Portell, who finally delivered the money 
to Power. The amount was $9,640, which was packed in 
sugar barrels ; — for, as Power said, " to take it openly 
would be too scandalous a thing." This was on the 27th 
of June, 1796. Proceeding up the river on his way to 
Cincinnati, Power was stopped at Louisville. He then 
turned the money over to Philip Nolan, Wilkinson's pro- 
tege and confidential agent, by whom it was conveyed to 
Frankfort, and thence to Wilkinson, less $640, detained 
by Power for expenses. Power again visited Wilkinson, 
who gave him instructions for Gayoso, he referring the latter 
in a letter dated September 22, 1796, to the verbal com- 
munications which would be made to. him by Power. 
These instructions Power reduced to writing. They em- 
braced the details which Wilkinson advised as necessary 
to put the plot into successful operation. The mouth of 
the Ohio must be fortified so as to delay an army for a 
year. Fort St. Fernando must be held and strengthened. 
A bank must be established in Kentucky. George Rogers 
Clark must be bought. A number of leading men in 
Kentucky must be purchased, and the press must be sub- 
sidized. Other details were given to Power in the hand- 
writing of Philip Nolan. 

The treaty which had been concluded with Spain fixed 
the southern boundary of the United States at 31° north 
latitude, and that the Spanish posts within those limits 
should be surrendered within six months ; that the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi from* its source to its mouth 
should be free to the people of the United States ; and 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 351 

the use of the port of New Orleans as a place of deposit 
and storage was made free from duty to our people. But, 
though the restrictions upon the river trade were sus- 
pended after the ratification of this treaty, Spain never 
intended, if it could in any way be avoided, to surrender 
any portion of the territory of which she held possession. 
The king had yielded a reluctant consent to the treaty 
under the compulsion of embarrassments in both Europe 
and America. He had been on the point of war with 
Great Britain ; an invasion of Upper Louisiana from 
Canada was threatened, and it was to oppose the territory 
of the United States as a friendly neutral as a barrier 
against the apprehended attack that induced him to 
give an apparent consent. The moment the exigency had 
passed means were sought by which the territory could 
be held. In the meantime Caroudelet, viewing the treaty 
in its proper light, as a mere act of finesse, until pressing 
embarrassments should have been surmounted, had been 
active in endeavors to charm success to his favorite plan 
of separating the West from the United States. The time 
had come when the ports must soon be surrendered unless 
something could be efi"ected. Power, on his return to the 
Spanish dominions, again made a favorable report as to 
the disposition of leading men in Kentucky towards these 
schemes of disunion. He was, therefore, commissioned to 
make to Sebastian, Innes, Nicholas and Murray in 1797, 
a proposition in which all that was necessarily implied in 
that of 1795, according to the copies of the letters of Ca- 
rondelet and of the terms submitted in the handwriting of 
Sebastian, was unequivocally expressed. The sum of 
$100,000 was to be placed at the disposition of these gen- 
tlemen as a reward for their own services, and with which 
to bribe others. An additional $100,000 was to be devoted 
to arming and sustaining troops who were to have seized 
upon Fort Massac. Assurance was given that the treaty 
with the United States would never be executed by Spain. 
A communication embodying the details of the proposi- 
tion was delivered by Power to Sebastian, who insisted 
upon the incorporation of a provision stipulating, that, in 



352 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

case of the failure of the plan, those persons who might 
lose their offices by reasons of their efibrts to promote it, 
should be indemnified by the Spanish king. The pious 
Sebastian undertook to make known the proposition to 
his friends, Innes and Nicholas; but Murray had so com- 
pletely lost his respect by drunkenness and infidelity that 
he positively refused to have aught to do with him. He 
accordingly saw Innes, who saw Nicholas, who decided 
that the dishonorable overture " ought to be rejected." 
A paper to this purport was drawn by Nicholas, a copy of 
which was signed by Innes and himself, and was delivered 
by the former to Sebastian. The following is a copy of 
the original amiable document, as it was communicated 
by Innes to the legislative committee, in the handwriting 
of Nicholas, unsigned and without date, viz : 

Sir : — We have seen the communication made by you to Mr. Sebas- 
tian. In answer thereto we declare unequivocally that we will not be 
concerned, either directly or indirectly, in any attempt that may be 
made to separate the western country from the United States. That 
whatever part we may, at any time, be induced to take in the politics 
of our country, that her welfare will be our only inducement, and that 
we will never receive any pecuniary or other reward for any personal 
exertions made by us to promote that welfare. 

The free navigation of the Mississippi must always be the favorite ob- 
ject of the inhabitants of the western country; they can not be con- 
tented without it, and will not be deprived of it longer than necessity 
shall compel them to submit to its being withheld from them. 

We flatter ourselves that every thing respecting this important busi- 
ness will be set right by the governments of the two nations ; but if 
this should not be the case, it appears to us that it must be the policy 
of Spain to encourage by every possible means the free intercourse 
with the inhabitants of the western country, as this will be the most 
efficient means to conciliate their good will, and to obtain, without haz- 
ard and at reduced prices, those supplies which are indispensably neces- 
sary to the Spanish government and its subjects. 

If Nicholas felt the virtuous indignation at this nefari- 
ous proposition which was attributed to him by his friends, 
it must be conceded that he had an admirable command 
of himself ;— for there is not a trace thereof in this paper. 
The reader will be forced to agree with Butler that, 
"These otters were entertained 'too gravely, and were re- 
jected with too much tameness for the honor of Kentucky 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 353 

patriotism.'^ But at least one of the signers of that paper 
had been tar too deeply implicated in previous schemes to 
afford to exhibit, even if he felt, an honest wrath at their 
renewal. 

After delivering the communication to Sebastian, Power 
proceeded to Detroit, where he had an interview with 
Wilkinson, whom he informed of the proposals of Caron- 
delet. But the American General knew that he was 
watched on every side, and that he was surrounded by 
men who were true to their country. He received Power 
coldly, exclaiming bitterly : " We are both lost without 
being able to derive any advantage from your journey." 
He said that the scheme was now " a chimerical project ; 
that the inhabitants of the western states, having obtained 
by treaty all they wanted, would not wish to form any 
other political or commercial alliances ; and that they had 
no motive for separating themselves from the other states 
of the Union, even if France and Spain should make them 
the most advantageous offers ; that the fermentations which 
had existed four years back had been appeased." He in- 
sisted that there was no course now left the Spanish except 
to carry out the provisions of the treaty, by which they 
had deprived themselves of their power over the western 
people. And, finally, that in order to avert suspicion, 
Power must -permit himself to be conducted under guard 
to Fort Massac. This was done. At New Madrid, Power 
was met by Sebastian, who delivered to him the reply of 
Nicholas and Innes. Sebastian did not agree with Wilk- 
inson, but encouraged Power still. to hope for ultimate 
success. He, however, made an unfavorable report to 
Carondelet, and thus the last overture of Spain came to 
a fruitless end. 

According to their own admissions before the committee 
of investigation, the fact that Sebastian had, for ten years 
at least, received an annual pension from Spain, was well 
known to John Brown and Judge Innes as early as Aug- 
ust, 1806. They encouraged Littell to write, and he did 
write, numerous articles for the Palladium, in defense of 
Sebastian, as well as of themselves, after they were in 
23 



354 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

possession of this positive knowledge, which they concealed 
from their champion. In October, when they had known 
the disgraceful truth for months, they solicited Littell to 
write, and paid him for writing,* and Wm. Hunter for 
publishing, the " Narrative of Political Transactions," 
which was as much of a defense of Sebastian, whom they 
knew to have been a pensioner of Spain for years, and of 
Wilkinson, as it was of John Brown, Ilary Innes or Caleb 
Wallace; — they w^ere all in the same boat together. Yet 
they still kept the fact of which they had knowledge a 
secret from both writer and publisher. Their intimacy 
was maintained with the pensioner, who was the most 
violent of all in his denunciations of the publications in 
the Western World as lies. They scrupulously withheld 
from their able and zealous advocate all knowledge of the 
intrigues with Thomas Power in 1795-7, and of Sebastian's 
pension, as Littell swore, " until in the (vening after the 
House of Representatives had acceded to the ■proposition to in- 
quire into the conduct of Sebastian. He (Innes,) then gave 
this deponent information that Sebastian could be proved 
to be a Spanish pensioner." Hunter testified to the same 
elFect. 

The grief of the reader in learning from the " Political Be- 
ginnings," that Humphrey Marshall was " violent, irrelig- 
ious and profane," will be mollified by the assurance given 
in the same work that Hary Innes " was a sincerely religious 
man." It might with equal truth have been stated that 
Caleb Wallace, who had abandoned the Presbyterian pulpit 
to go into politics, kept up his church relations, and prac- 
ticed his devotions with the utmost regularity. Sebastian 
also, w^ho had cast off" the gown of the Episcopal ministry 
in his pursuit of the "flesh pots of Egypt," continued, it 
is believed, the exercise of all religious observances, and, 



* Marshall, Vol. 2, page 399, says that Littell was paid $50 each by- 
Brown, Wallace and Innes, and cheated of the other $50 by Sebastian. 
No mention is made in the depositions read by the writer of the $50 
due by Sebastian. But there is a mention of a " residue " of $50 which 
was paid by Innes in the name of Thomas Todd. The inference is that 
when Sebastian failed to pay, the deficit was made up by Todd. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 355 

in the depth of his piety, deemed a treasonable overture 
entirely too good to be communicated to an infidel. While 
John Brown, who had absorbed faith as he sat under the 
very droppings of the sanctuary,* it will be cheerfully con- 
ceded was the most devout of the four. On the other hand, 
John Wood, one of the editors of the Western World, whom 
they afterwards bought, was a reprobate ; and young Joseph 
M. Street, whom they could neither bribe nor intimidate, 
and the attempt to assassinate whom proved a failure, was 
a sinner. It is distressing to think that, like Gavin Ham- 
ilton, the latter " drank, and swore, and played at carts." 
It may be that the wickedness of the editors of the West- 
ern World, and the contemplation of their own saintliness, 
justified in the eyes of the four Christian jurists and states- 
men the several little stratagems they devised, and paid 
Littell for introducing into his "Narrative," in order to 
obtain the advantage of the wicked editors in the argu- 
ment. The contrast of their characters made innocent 
those little mutilations by Innes of his own letter to Ran- 
dolph ! The same process of reasoning made laudable John 
Brown's suppression of his Muter letter, his assertion that 
it was identical with the " sliding letter," and his claim 
that the acceptance of Gardoqui's proposition would have 
been consistent with the alleged purpose to make some 
future application for the admission of Kentucky into the 
new Union ! While the suppression of the resolution of 
Wallace and Wilkinson in the July convention, and the 
declaration that such a ^^ motion never was made,'' in order 
to prove the unhappy editors to be liars, became as praise- 
■worthy as the spoiling of the Egyptians by the Israelites ! 
The scene of those four distinguished gentlemen seated 
around a table, with a prayer-book in the center, planning 
the screen for themselves and the discomfiture of the 
editors, would be a subject worthy of the brush of a 
Hogarth. 

And, if the traditions that have come down concerning 



*He was the son of Rev. John Brown, a Presbyterian minister of re- 
spectable abilities and reputable life, who was for nearly fifty years the 
pastor of the Timber Ridge Church, in Rockbridge county, Virginia. 



356 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

him be true, the able William Littell was also a publican. 
Perhaps that fact made legitimate the supplying him with 
false copies and false information, as well as the conceal- 
ment from him of the intrigues of 1795-7, and their knowl- 
edge of Sebastian's pension ! Littell, however, seems to 
have taken a different view of his treatment by the men 
whom he defended, and to whose confidence he was cer- 
tainly entitled. After detailing in his deposition in the 
case of Innes v. Marshall, that he had undertaken the de- 
fense of all the parties in good faith, believing them to be 
innocent and persecuted ; and the information that was 
furnished him in the Appendix prepared by Innes ; in 
reply to a question by Marshall as to the name of the 
author of an article in the Palladium, in 1807, assailing 
Marshall, to which that of Marshall upon which the suit 
was brought was a reply, — Littell answered : That he did 
not know what article was referred to, nor who wrote it, 
^^for as soon as Sebastian was detected, this deponent directed 
his attention to other objects. He never afterwards lorote any 
thing against Wood, Street, or Marshall, or any other relative 
to the Spanish Conspiracy. He knew that the contest was 
still carried on with the ' Western World,' but he did not 
know or care how or by whom ; he felt no interest in the 
contest, read but few of the publications, and had no inter- 
course with their authors." Which was a decorous way 
of expressing his sense of the ill-usage involved in the 
deceits practiced upon himself; his disgust at having been 
made the instrument for the propagation of, and the palm- 
ing of fraud upon the public; of his own conviction that 
the parties who had thus equivocated and concealed from 
him the truth had been equally guilty with Sebastian of 
intrigue; and that, feeling himself, miserable sinner as he 
was, unfit longer to associate with these — the Lord's saints 
he had then and there washed his hands of the confed- 
erates and of all their concerns. 

Before the meeting of the Legislature in November, 
1806, the charge had been published in the Western World, 
by Humphrey Marshall, that Sebastian had been for years 
a stipendiary of Spain. He also drew up an address 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 357 

to the Legislature reciting the fact that Sebastian was a 
Spanish pensioner, and praying an inquiry. A number 
of copies of this address were printed, some of which 
were taken to Woodford, were numerously signed by in- 
dependent farmers of that county, w^ere taken into the 
possession of William Blackburn, the Representative, and 
by him the facts were made known to other members. 
By the 22d of the month the movement had gathered 
such strength that a resolution was offered by Samuel 
McKee, the member from Garrard, that a committee be 
appointed to institute the desired inquiry. A substitute 
therefor was offered by John Pope and was adopted. If 
the newspaper statements of the day are to be credited, 
Sebastian protested his innocence and requested that the 
investigation be delayed, to give him an opportunity to 
procure evidence for its vindication. It is certain, that a 
vigorous effort was made to defeat the resolution and pre- 
vent inquiry, under the pretense of giving the Judge time 
to prepare. But Blackburn presented two addresses and 
petitions from his constituents, which made the charges 
specified in the resolution, and by his determined ex- 
pressions the resolution for the investigation was car- 
ried. Witnesses were sent for, and attended. The receipt 
of the pension by Sebastian, then Judge of the Court of 
Appeals, was absolutel}^ proven by the testimony of 
Thomas Bullitt, of Charles Wilkins and James T. Martin, 
given before the committee on the 27th day of November, 
1806, and by Sebastian's own drafts for the pension and 
letter relating thereto, which were produced. In the af- 
ternoon of that day, and after the facts had been estab- 
lished by this evidence, and not until then, Sebastian 
handed his resignation to Governor Greenup, by wdiom it 
was accepted. 

In his letter of resignation the venal Ju-dge admitted 
the receipt of the pension. He claimed, however, that it 
was granted and had been paid for the services he had 
rendered in 1795, the nature of which has been stated. 
There have not been wanting writers who, accepting Se- 
bastian's representations as truthful and candid, contend 



358 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

that his conduct was not even reprehensible. The same 
writers compliment him on the alleged manliness with 
which he avowed all that he had done. Yet to the un- 
biased reader, w4io has read his importunity in 1790, it 
will be apparent that Sebastian confessed only the receipt of 
the pension, which could no longer be denied; that his al- 
legations as to the time that pension commenced and as to 
the service for which it was paid, were inventions to excul- 
pate himself and screen his friends. His corruption and 
the turpitude which had resulted in the iinal exposure of 
his disgrace, both had their origin in 1788, in his collusion 
in the nefarious schemes of James Wilkinson and of John 
Brown.* 



* Benjamin Sebastian was not a native of any of the colonies. He 
was educated for, and for a time officiated as, an Episcopal minister. 
Then became a lawyer, and early drifted to Kentucky. Unlike Wilkin- 
son, he had never worn the American uniform. Unlike Brown, Innes 
and Wallace, in 1788 he held no official position, and betrayed no trust 
by engaging in the schemes which then commenced. It must be borne 
in mind that his communications with the Spaniards at least began 
when he was a private citizen. Had it not been for his complicity in 
the schemes of Wilkinson and Brown in 1788, he might never have been 
corrupted. He was the only one of the conspirators who expiated his 
offense, and thus was the only one entitled to sympathy. He bore his 
punishment uncomplainingly, accepted his position as "scapegoat," and 
never "peached upon his pals." They, on the other hand, hated him 
because of his unwariness. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 359 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Innes' Effort to Stop the Investigation of the Charge Against 
Sebastian — His Fear that His Friend Had been Indiscreet — 
Innes Goes before the Committee— Details the Overture of 
1795 — Queer Account of the Manner in which His Name be- 
came Known to the Spaniards — Says Nothing op the Overture 
OF 1797 — Comes Back and Tells of That Also— Doubts Whether 
He Rejected the Overture when made Known to Him by Se- 
bastian, OR Reserved His Decision Until Nicholas Had been 
Consulted — Allowed to Put His Testimony into the Form of a 
Deposition— Variance between the Oral and the Written 
Evidence — Reason Assigned by Innes for Not Revealing the 
Overture to the Federal Authorities — He Feared John Adams 
Might Think He was Courting Favor— And did not Want the 
Army Sent to Kentucky — The Report of the Committee. 

The effort to defeat the investigation of the charges 
against Sebastian, by postponing it on the pretense of 
affording him time for his defense, and his resignation 
after his guilt had been proven, have been stated. The 
next rallying point was the attempt that was made to 
prevent the exposure of others, by dissuading the com- 
mittee from pursuing their investigation and by represent- 
ing that the sole object of their appointment had been at- 
tained in the resignation of Sebastian. The person most 
interested in maintaining this view was Judge Innes.* 



■■•■ Among the members of the legislature constituting the committee 
was Henry Davidge, afterwards judge of the circuit court of the Shelby 
district. He was made a witness in the suit of Innes v. Marsliall, and, 
on the 10th of June, 1812, gave his deposition in that case. He testified, 
that on the evening of the first day of the investigation, 27th of Novem- 
ber, 1806, and after the guilt of Sebastian had been proven as already 
stated, he went to dine with Governor Greenup, whom he found in the 
public room in conversation with Sebastian. "The judge, upon my en- 
tering the room, rose up apparently in haste, looked about for his hat or 
stick, and immediately disappeared." The governer then informed the 
witness that Sebastian had resigned. The bell for the committee to 
meet again rang, when Davidge proposed to go ; but Greenup told him 



360 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

Kor did lie sernple to exert liimself to prevail upon mem- 
bers of the committee to desist from their inquiry. And 
that he had excellent reason for his concern and anxiety 
can not be disputed. Whether he went voluntarily before 
the committee the next day, or was summoned, does not 
appear from the record. 

His knowledge of the payment of the pension to Sebas- 
tian, since the preceding August, is ascertained from his 
own deposition. The information, he alleged, was then 
given to him by Charles Wilkins, who gave liim a copy 
of a letter from Sebastian to John A. Seitz, deceased, of 
Natchez, which disclosed the truth. When Judge Innes 
thus had the proof laid before him in Sebastian's own 
handwriting of the turpitude of the appellate judge, he 
" observed," as stated by Wilkins, " that he feared Judge 
Sebastian had acted indiscreetly ;" — but whether this indis- 
crction consisted in receiving the pension, or in the careless 
way with Avhich he had exposed his guilty secret, the evi- 
dence of Wilkins did not indicate. In October, thereafter, 
Sebastian admitted the fact to Innes, and made the same 

not to go ; that he intended to go up and certify Sebastian's resignation, 
and he supposed the committee would proceed no further, but if they 
did, he would let Davidge know. Hearing that the committee was in 
session, Davidge started to go to their place of meeting, but on his way 
was informed that the committee had risen to meet again next morn- 
ing, and had determined to proceed with the inquiry notwithstanding 
the judge had resigned. Upon returning to the governor's house he 
found Innes there, who " addressed himself to this deponent and asked 
what the committee had done or were about to do." Upon being in- 
formed of the purpose of the committee, " the plaintiff wished to be 
informed what was the object of the committee in proceeding further ? 
The object of the investigation, he said, was to put the judge out of 
office, nothing further ought or could be done with him." Davidge up- 
held the action of the committee, who, he tliought, " ought not to let 
the judge get off in that way." " The plaintiff appeared much con- 
cerned, and asked the deponent if he would say so as a lawyer? This 
deponent, with some degree of earnestness, replied that he would say 
so botli as a lawyer and as a man." "And this deponent seeing the 
plaintiff so much concerned about the committee being determined to 
proceed in the examination, declined to say any thing further. Yet this 
deponent was surprised at the manner of tlie plaintiff's urging the im- 
propriety of the committee's determination to proceed with the investi- 
gation." 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 361 

claim then in regard to tlie matter that he subsequently 
made in his letter of resignation. After thus testifying, 
Innes proceeded to detail the circumstances of the over- 
ture of 1795, as they have already been stated and attrib- 
uted to him in the preceding chapter. His testimony was 
given orally. 

During this examination an incident occurred which 
furnished amusement to some members of the committee, 
but which harassed the judge no little, and was much 
dwelt upon in the depositions subsequently taken in the 
litigation with Marshall. He was asked how his name 
came to be known to the Spanish authorities of Louisiana 
as one with whom they could communicate upon such a 
matter. It was proven by the testimony of Judge George 
M. Bibb and Colonel John Allen,* in the case of Innes v. 
Marshall, with which the less distinct recollections of 
Judge McKee and others corresponded, that Innes replied, 
that the way in which his name had become known to the 
Spanish authorities was, that they had seen his name writ- 
ten in a copy of Sterne's " Sentimental Journey,'' which 
General Wilkinson had carried with him to New Orleans, 
in 1787. The distressed jurist would have had the com- 
passionate committee to believe, that this constituted the 
sole acquaintance with his name and character upon which 
Carondelet had proceeded to select him, a Federal Judge, 
as one of four men in all the West with whom to secretly 
confer upon a subject of this nature ! Ignorant, as the 
members of the committee necessarily were, of the cor- 
respondence between Wilkinson and Miro, there was not 
one of them probably so simple as to have given the 
slightest credence to a claim so supremely absurd. The 
reader, wlio knows from the contents of that correspond- 
ence in what manner the name of Hary Innes was made 
familiar to the Spaniards, and the circumstances under 



'This gentleman must not be confounded with Judge John Allen, of 
Bourbon, whose testimony concerning the conventions of 1788 has pre- 
viously appeared. He was a much younger man, and the two were in 
no way related. The Colonel Allen above referred to was killed at the 
Raisin. 



362 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

which it was communicated to Miro by Wilkinson, will 
have a just appreciation of the candor which inspired the 
answer, as well as a clear understanding of the good rea- 
sons Caroudelet had for his confidence that Innes was 
open to approach. 

The testimony of the witnesses in the case referred to 
at this point varied as to whether Innes, after giving his 
version of these transactions of 1795, intimated that he 
was in possession of other information which might not 
be regarded as relevant to the subject under investigation, 
but which he was ready to communicate, and after wait- 
ing some little time, and no question being aslced, left 
the room; or, whether he left without indicating that he 
knew any thing more. The statement of Judge Robert 
Trimble being the most direct and positive in behalf of 
Innes on this point it is here quoted : 

" Mr. Innes then observed that he had detailed to the committee 
every thing he knew on the subject of the pension, or which was imme- 
diately connected with the subject of inquiry before the committee ; but 
that he had some knowledge of other transactions or facts not immedi- 
ately connected therewith. At the time of making the preceding obser- 
vation, Mr. Innes pulled a small bundle of papers out of his coat pocket 
and held them in his hand for some time. No further interrogatory 
was then put to him by the committee, and he put the bundle of papers 
again into his pocket and withdrew from before the committee, with- 
out making any disclosure of the overtures made through Sebastian by 
Thomas Power." 

With this statement of Trimble, those of Colonel Allen, 
Judge Bibb, and others widely differed. Bibb stated that 
Innes retired of his own accord without disclosing the 
overtures of Power in 1797. Allen, that "Mr. Innes gave 
evidence and retired. I thought he was do7ie." Afterwards 
he met Innes in the street; Innes stated " the nature of 
his tale as to Power," and asked Allen "whether it was 
matter which should be given in evidence in the inquiry 
committee." Allen thought it should be detailed, but, 
being one of the committee, referred him to Henry Clay, 
to whom Innes shortly after mentioned the matter in 
Allen's presence. Both then expressed the opinion that 
the facts should be detailed. At Innes' request, Allen 
suggested to the committee the recall of Innes, and Innes 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 363^ 

came back and gave his evidence as to the overture of 
Power through Sebastian in 1797. In the meantime, how- 
ever, Bibb had seen Innes go into the house of John 
Brown. Judge McKee testified that "Hary Innes was 
examined before the said committee, and this deponent 
believes on oath; and after stating several facts and cir- 
cumstances to the committee, he retired therefrom with- 
out stating that he had further testimony to deliver." 

Henry Davidge deposed, that when Innes concluded his 
testimony concerning the visit of Sebastian to ISTew Or- 
leans in 1795, he, the witness, ''supposed the plaintiff had 
disclosed all the news relative to the subject then before 
the committee ;" and that nothing had then been said by 
Innes about the proposition of Power at a later date. All 
agree, however, that after other witnesses had, in the 
meantime, been examined, but differing as to the length 
of time that had elapsed, Innes again came before the 
committee, in a greatly disturbed, excited and agitated 
condition, and said there was something more connected 
with the subject before the committee to be related. See- 
ing Wood, one of the publishers of the Western Worlds 
present and taking notes, Innes objected and requested 
the committee to interfere.* Innes then testified concern- 
ing the overture of 1797, as appears in preceding pages. 
The proposition then made was but a renewal in detail of 
the old scheme which had been agreed on between Miro 
and Wilkinson, which had been " discussed " between Gar- 
doqui and John Brown, which the latter had agreed to 
" aid," and which these two, with Sebastian, Innes and 
Wallace, had tried to accomplish. 

The witnesses again differed as to the account Innes 
gave in his oral testimony of the response he made to Se- 
bastian, when this proposition was submitted to him for 
consideration. Judge Trimble was conscious that his re- 
collection was not distinct. He remembered that Innes 
asserted that " he observed to Sebastian it was a danger- 
ous project, and added something about the Western peo- 



Deposition of Hon. Henry Davidge, in case of Innes v. Marshall. 



364 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

pie " which Trimble did not distinctly understand. In con- 
sequence of not distinctly " collecting" " the precise expres- 
sion of Mr. Innes immediately following the remark that it 
was a dangerous project," Trimble " was left in a painful 
suspense " " as to how far Mr. Innes had gone in rejecting or 
repelling the proposition in the first instance, and which 
was not removed until Mr. Innes' written deposition was 
read before the committee." The recollection of George 
Walker and William McMillan was, in substance, in an- 
swer to leading questions, that Innes stated that he had 
remarked to Sebastian that it was a dangerous project and 
ought not to be countenanced; and that on Sebastian urg- 
ing him to see Nicholas, to whom also the communication 
of Power was addressed, he agreed to do so, not that his 
own position should be determined by that of Nicholas, 
but simply that a formal written answer should be made. 
On the other hand. Judge Bibb deposed that : 

" My understanding of said Innes' testimony, as delivered viva voce, 
is clear and distinct, that said Innes did take the paper from Sebastian, 
for the purpose of communicating the said propositions to Colonel Nich- 
olas, telling said Sebastian that he, Innes, waald abide by wJiatever determina- 
tion Colonel Nicholas should make upon tlie subject of those propositions, and 
to show that determination produced a paper which he stated was a 
copy of a written reply signed by Colonel Nicholas and himself, the 
original whereof had been delivered to said Sebastian." 
Judge McKee was equally positive. He said : 
" When the proposition of Doctor Power was submitted to Harry In- 
nes by Benjamin Sebastian, Harry Innes stated before the committee 
that he answered Sebastian by stating that he, Innes, would see Colonel 
Nicholas in a few days, who was one of the persons to whom the over- 
ture was made, and submit the papers to Colonel Nicholas, and they 
would be governed by kis decision. This is the substance of the state- 
ment made before the committee." " This deponent says, that, accord- 
ing to his recollection, Hary Innes, before the committee, did not state 
any reasons, as having been given to Sebastian, when the proposition 
was made to him; but declined any definitive answer until he ob- 
tained the opinion of Colonel Nicholas. It is in this respect the writ- 
ten deposition differs from that delivered before the committee." 

It will be understood, that, after giving in his testimony 
orally, Judge Innes was permitted to reduce his statement 
to writing, and to submit it in the form of a deposition. 
The above testimony was adduced to show in what respect 
the written diftbred from the oral statement. There was 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 365 

evidence that Iniies requested the committee to point out 
such difference, if any there were, that it might be cor- 
rected before he signed his deposition, and that no such 
correction was desired. Other witnesses did not remem- 
ber this, but did remember that the variance was noticed 
at the time. The following is the statement made in the 
deposition : 

"That Mr. Sebastian came to this deponent's house, some short time 
after receiving the communication, and shewed it to him, upon which 
this deponent observed, that it was a dangerous project, and ought not 
to be countenanced, as the western people had now obtained the navigation of 
the Mississippi, by which all their wishes were gratified. Mr. Sebastian con- 
curred in sentiment, but observed, that Power wished a written answer, 
and requested me to see Colonel Nicholas, saying that whatever we did, 
he would concur in. I promised to visit the Colonel in two or three 
days. This deponent never had any communication with Mr. Murray 
upon the business, nor does he know that Mr. Sebastian ever did in- 
form Mr. Murray of it." 

This version was afterwards supported by Sebastian in 
his deposition in the suit of Innes v. Marshall. Whether 
or not Innes at once rejected the infamous proposal when 
it was communicated by Sebastian, or deferred a decision 
until that of Nicholas had been obtained, the evidence is, 
that, after consulting with that able and distinguished 
man, Innes united with him in the very mild and studi- 
ously inoffensive missive which was returned to Power. 
It will be remarked, however, that, according to Innes' 
own statement, he deemed the proposition "dangerous " 
and one that " ought not to be countenanced," because, 
(" as") " the western people had now obtained the naviga- 
tion of the Mississi})pi, by which all their wishes were 
gratified," and, therefore, could not be induced to embark 
in such a " Revolt from the Union ; " — from which the im- 
plication naturally arises, that, had not European compli- 
cations compelled the Spanish king to disregard the advice 
of Wilkinson, by acquiescing temporarily in that naviga- 
tion, in the treaty he had concluded with the United 
States, the answer of Innes would have been different. 
Wilkinson, who had urged the king never to make the con- 
cession to the United States, was " cool" to Power, on pre- 
cisely the same ground ; — by the treaty the Spaniards had 



366 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

abandoned their power over the western people. The 
witnesses agreed, that, when Innes went before the com- 
mittee tlie second time, after consulting with John Brown, 
who probably advised him that all must come out, and he 
had better anticipate the revelations that would be made 
by others ; — his agitation was extreme. Before informing 
the committee that he had additional communications to 
make, he burst into tears. During the progress of the 
revelation, he lost the power of speech, gasped for breath, 
and seemed in a fainting condition. The committee drew 
away from around him, and the windows were opened to 
give him air. It was, indeed, a most humiliating, sorrow- 
ful, pitiful scene.* 

The impression produced upon the committee by the 
disclosure made by the trembling, h^^sterical, gasping, 
fainting, weeping jurist, may be gathered from the depo- 
sition of Davidge, that " this deponent was surprised that 
these matters did not come out upon the iirst examination 
of the plaintiff before the committee. This deponent, on 
hearing the proposition of Power (in 1797) observed to 
one of the committee, that this w^as the cream of the joke ; 
that the proposition of Power cast light on the whole af- 
fair, and that the deponent could now see into the whole 
mystery ; that the commercial arrangements appeared to 
be more like military operations or preparations." f 

"When giving his testimony in the case of Innes v. Mar- 
shall, lA.o\i. George M. Bibb:J: was reminded that he had 



* Depositions of George M. Bibb, Colonel John Allen, Hon. Henry 
M. Davidp;e and others in re Lines v. Marshall. 

t Davidge testified that " no instance has yet occurred to this depo- 
nent where the feelings of a witness so completely triumphed over his 
philosophy." 

t The deposition of Colonel John Allen is dated " Camp at Wayne's 
Battle Ground, near the foot of the rapids of the Miami of the Lake, 
January 13, 1813." In a letter he stated that his ink was freezing as he 
wrote, and that for more than four months his " clothes had not been 
off, except to change a shirt." A few days later he fell at the Raisin. 
His body was never recovered. The " Political Beginnings " having 
stated that Allen was one of the objects of Marshall's rancor, it may be 
proper to state, that, in the deposition Colonel Allen spoke of him as 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 367 

been a judge of the court of appeals, and was asked : 
"Had a citizen of this state or a foreigner within its ju- 
2'isdiction made to you the proposition herein ascribed to 
Power, had you been a judge possessing criminal jurisdic- 
tion of treason or suspicion of treason, what woukl liave 
been your duty ? " He repHed : " I should have considered 
it my duty to have caused the offender to be apprehended ; 
brought to trial, and not dismissed by my consent or au- 
thority, until he had given security for his good behavior, 
in case the law had provided, or the constituted authori- 
ties had adjudged no greater penalty for such ah offense."* 

" an uncommonly good neighbor ; " that Marshall had, on his removing 
to Frankfort, manifested a friendly disposition towards him, and that 
there had been considerable intercourse between their families, which 
had not been interrupted by their political diiferences. He spoke par- 
ticularly of the kindness of Mrs. Marshall to his family when they were 
in distress, " which had made a lasting impression." The writer has 
personal and definite knowledge, that this friendship was always main- 
tained between the descendants of Humphrey Marshall and those of 
Colonel Allen. 

■■■■ In the trial of this case this statement of Judge Bibb was probably 
severely felt by the plaintiff. This the writer infers from the fact, that, 
after the trial, his deposition was retaken, .January 1, 1815, apparently 
for the purpose of obtaining some statement which might " let Innes 
down " a little more easily. Bibb was then asked if he had not, after 
this investigation, continued his habits of intimacy with Innes, and ac- 
cepted his invitations to dine. He replied that he " was in the habit of so- 
cial intercourse with the plaintiff, and accepted most willingly his invi- 
tations to his house and to his table." He was then asked by Hum- 
phrey Marshall, whether it was Innes' " own merits, or that of his cook, 
which induced you to attend his dinner parties ? " To this Judge Bibb 
replied: " That he associated with the plaintiff ; believing him to be a 
man of amiable character, an exemplary man in his domestic govern- 
ment, of great benevolence. I did not ascribe to him any bad inten- 
tions in relation to the intrigue and conspiracy of Sebastian with the 
Spanish government. My opinion was, and yet is, that Mr. Innes, from 
a natural benevolence and mildness of character, yielded too far to the 
temper of the times, and loarmth of friendship for and confidence in certain 
individuals. If I had thought him criminal I never should have invited 
Mr. Innes (the plaintiff) to my house, nor accepted an invitation to his." 

This statement by Judge Bibb gives expression to the only palliation 
that can be found for the conduct of Judge Innes ;— justification is im- 
possible. In a conversation with John Jouitt, in 1815, Humphrey Mar- 
shall said that he had never regarded Innesas personally and privately a 
bad man. And the flagitiousness of his political conduct he attributed 



368 The Spavish Conspiracy. 

Judge In lies gave the following as the reason why he 
and Colonel Nicholas did not communicate the proposi- 
tions that had heeu made to the Executive of the United 
States, viz : 

"1st. That it was well known that neither of us approved of Mr. Adams's 
administration, and that we believed he kept a watchful eye over our 
actions, that the communication must depend upon his opinion of our 
veracity ; and it would have the appearance of courting his favor. 2d. 
That we both had reason, and did believe, that the then administration 
were disposed upon the slightest pretext to send an army to this state, 
which we considered would be a grievance upon the people, and there- 
fore declined making any communication upon the subject, as we ap- 
prehended no danger from the Spanish government." 

Of this statement, Perrin, in his History of Kentucky 
(page 300), says, that at the time it was considered " rather 
lame," and that the reasons assigned " were not believed 
to be the true reasons" for the failure to communicate the 
treasonable proposition to the Executive. While the hon- 
est and impartial Ilildreth, discrediting the statement as 
flimsy and ridiculous, distinctly expresses his conviction, 
that secrec}^ was maintained because a disclosure would 
have induced an investigation which would have impli- 
cated Innes in other matters which it was his deep interest 
should remain covered. As between the justice of these 
expressions, and that of Colonel Brown's broad assertion, 
that " no one, w^io will take the trouble to examine the 
testimony given under oath, can have a shadow of doubt" 
of the "perfect rectitude" of Innes, the reader is left to 
determine. Certain it is, however, that among the mem- 
bers of the committee who heard the testimony as it was 
given, and who afterwards testified in the libel suit of 
Innes v. MarshalL there was more than one who did have 



entirely to the evil influence exerted over him by others. All of the 
misfortunes which embittered the closing years of his life were attrib- 
utable to his intimacy with, and the baneful influence of, James Wilkin- 
son, John Brown, and Sebastian. In the origin of the personal quarrel, 
between Innes and H. Marshall the latter was to blame, and so confessed 
himself. That quarrel was never espoused by any of Marshall's kin- 
dred, none of whom had any share or participation therein, and not one 
of whom ever manifested or cherished the slightest personal ill will 
against Innes on that or any other account. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 369 

very grave doubts of the rectitude of the Federal Judge. 
Eor were those doubts contined to them ; they were shared 
by the people and by many of the prominent men of the 
Commonwealth. The judgment of the committee was, 
that the intercourse of Sebastian w^ith the agents of the 
Spanish Government, a part of which certainly was with 
the confessed approbation and connivance of Innes, was 
" illicit, unjustiliable, and highly criminal, subversive of 
every duty he owed to the constituted authorities of our 
country, and highly derogatory to the character of Ken- 
tucky." 

Still no direct censure had been passed upon the Judge 
of the Federal Court by name. That he remained unmo- 
lested was unquestionably not attributable to any convic- 
tion on the part of those in authority that there was no 
culpability in his own conduct, nor in the concealment of 
the treasonable proposition which had been made to him, 
but solely to the fact that the concealment had been prac- 
ticed during the administration of John Adams, who had 
been succeeded by Mr. Jefferson, of whom Innes had 
been a devoted partisan.* 



* In 1797, the Federal army, which Innes was so fearful might be 
gent to Kentucky, was under the command of his friend, James Wil- 
kinson. 

24 



370 The Spanish Conspiracy. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Humphrey Marshall Becomes a Candidate for the Legislature — 
Announces His Purpose to Inaugurate Measures to Secure 
the Impeachment of Innes — Is Elected — Popular Verdict Unfa- 
vorable to Innes — Action of the Legislature Equally Condem- 
natory — More of Colonel Brown's Misrepresentations — The 
Libel Suit Against Street — Marshall Neither Wrote the Arti- 
cle ON which Street was Sued, nor Gave the Information on 
WHICH IT WAS Founded — Colonel Brown Claims that the Inves- 
tigations Completely Vindicated Innes, but Conceals the Re- 
sults OF THOSE Investigations — Suppresses the Result of the 
Suit Against Marshall — That Suit Goes to Trial — A Divided 
Jury. 

Having been cliieflj instrumental in driving Sebastian 
in well merited disgrace from the Court of Appeals, in 
order that measures might be initiated for the visitation 
of what he conceived to be equal justice upon Innes, Plum- 
phrey Marshall now determined to announce himself as a 
candidate for a seat in the next Legislature. The Federal 
party, of which he was the ablest and most conspicuous 
member then in Kentucky, was dead beyond the power 
of resurrection. His vote for the ratification of the 
Constitution of the United States, the adoption of which 
had saved the people from anarchy and all the evils that 
flow from lawlessness, and had rescued the country from 
impending dismemberment and internecine strife, had 
been imputed to him as a crime much worse than treason. 
His vote for the Jay treaty with Great Britain, which de- 
clared the neutrality of our country in the conflicts which 
desolated Europe, and kept us free from all entanghng for- 
eign alliances ; which first announced and inaugurated the 
policy which has ever since been maintained by all subse- 
quent administrations ; which at the time saved us alike 
from a threatened war with Great Britain and from being 
made a mere adjunct of France ; which immediately led to 
the surrender of the posts in the liorth-west, to the 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 371 

pacification of the Indians, and to important commercial 
advantages ; — for a vote which gave peace and averted war, 
guarded our honor and promoted our interests and wel- 
fare, he had been denounced as a friend of monarchy, an 
enemy of liberty, and had been villified as though he had 
been the vilest of malefactors. To his other ofienses as a 
senator had been added the crime of the ardent support 
he had given the administrations of Washington and 
Adams, in their patriotic efforts to establish public credit, 
to maintain the national honor, to avert strife, to uphold 
the Constitution, and to preserve the Union against the 
foes by wdiom they were assailed jon every side. As a Fed- 
eralist the odium excited by the Alien and Sedition law was 
visited upon him. He had refused absolutely to obey in- 
structions when they conflicted with his own matured 
convictions of justice and right and the interests and wel- 
fare of the whole country. Disdaining to temporize with 
wrong, scorning all that savored of equivocation, he cour- 
ageously maintained against all comers the principles and 
policy of the defeated and disbanded party. The national 
administration was in the hands of an enemy to all of his 
name and kindred. The state administration was con- 
trolled by his own implacable foes. With many of the 
prominent men of the state he had been involved in the 
most acrimonious political and personal controversies. 
Seldom was any man so maliciously traduced. The as- 
saults by insignificant tools of others were treated with 
contemptuous indifference. But the leaders among his 
antagonists who assailed him had abundant cause for 
regret. 

On the other hand, Innes, a generous, hospitable and 
amiable man, much beloved for his personal qualities, was 
surrounded by a large, respectable and influential family 
connection, as well as by friends whose political and per- 
sonal interests were identified with his own, and who had 
at their back all that prestige of success and wealth can 
bring. It was under these circumstances, in a community 
in which he had been grossly outraged by mob violence, 
that Marshall, single handed and alone, openly avowing 



372 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

his object, entered the canvass against all odds, and ap- 
pealed to the people whom he had never courted or flat- 
tered, upon the facts established by the record. He was 
elected, and, on the same issue, was re-elected to the suc- 
ceeding Legislature; from this circumstance, which Colo- 
nel Brown fails to mention, may be gathered the contem- 
porary judgment upon the evidence as passed by the 
community in which both men lived. 

Having thus obtained a popular verdict, in January, 1808, 
Humphrey Marshall j)resented resolutions to the Ken- 
tucky House of Representatives looking to an investiga- 
tion into the conduct of Innes by Congress. They were 
opposed by Mr. Clay, on the ground that they constituted 
an expression of opinion and tended to prejudice Innes. 
They were not adopted, and Mr. Clay's substitute therefor 
was also rejected. The substance of Marshall's resolu- 
tions was then embodied in others which were presented 
by William Blackburn, and were adopted by both 
branches of the General Assembly, which were transmit- 
ted to Congress, and which fairly reflect the sentiment 
and judgment not only of that legislative body, but of the 
most moderate and conservative of the candid and think- 
ing people of the State at that time, viz.: 

" Inasmuch as it has been deemed expedient to express the public 
opinion on subjects of general concern, as the means of union among 
members of the same community, or as indications of the public, serving 
as guides to public servants in their ofiicial conduct ; and whereas, from 
representations made to the General Assembly by the introduction of a 
resoUition, and upon the application of Harry Innes, Esq., by letter di- 
rected to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and by him laid 
before that house praying an examination into the cliarges exhibited 
■against him in said resolution, and from evidence to them exhibited, it 
appears that the said Harry Innes, Esq., while sole judge of the Federal 
Court, for the Kentucky district, had knowledge of various intrigues 
and secret negotiations liaving been at diflerent times carried on by the 
agents and emissaries of a foreign government with citizens of this 
State, liostile to the. peace and tranqmllty of the Union ; particularly in the 
case of the Baron de Carondelet, and in the case of Thomas Power, 
agents and emissaries of the King of Spain ; and the said Harry Innes, 
Esq., possessing a complete knowledge of propositions having been 
made to himself and others, citizens of the Western country, by the 
flaid Carondelet and Power, which had for their object the dismember- 
ment of the Union ; and having failed to communicate to the Federal Execu- 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 373 

tive, or to lake any measures of prevention, as by the duties of his office he was 
bound to do; and the conduct of the said Harry Innes, Esq., in this par- 
ticular having been such as to excite great public discontent, and a suspicion 
that he participated in the intrigues and secret negotiations aforesaid. 

" The Legislature deem those circumstances in the conduct of the said 
Harry Innes, Esq., as furnishing an occasion of sufficient magnitude to 
interest the attention of the representatives of the people of Kentucky, 
and to call forth the expression of their opinion ; therefore, 

" Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives, That the. con- 
duct of the said. Harry Innes, Esq., relative to the secret negotiations of the said 
Carondelet and Power, ought to be inquired into by the constituted authorities of 
the United States. 

" Also resolved, That the Governor of this State be requested to trans- 
mit a copy of the forgoing resolutions to each of the representatives of 
this State in the Congress of the United States." 

These resolutions were adopted b}^ a general assembly 
inimical to the political views of Marshall ; they did not 
utter his personal ill will, but gave a voice to the deliber- 
ate sentiment of the representatives of the people as to 
what was due to the honor and dignity of the Common- 
wealth which they deemed to have been outraged by the 
federal judge. They were transmitted to Congress, and 
were by that body referred to a committee. The report 
of that committee did not acquit Innes of culpability nor 
of criminality ; it simply stated that in the opinion of the 
committee the proofs which accompanied the resolutions 
of the legislature were not sufficient upon which to im- 
peach the district judge. It was an evasion of the request 
for an investigation, which would have exposed many a 
skeleton, and which the committee therefore deemed it 
inexpedient to institute. The sketch of Judge Innes, 
published by Collins, mentions that charges against him 
were ignored by Congress, but it gives no clue to the na- 
ture of those charges, and suppresses the fact that they 
were made by the legislative power of the state in which 
he lived, controlled by the party of which he was a mem- 
ber. And the " Political Beginnings," while asserting 
that Innes was vindicated by the investigation of the 
charges against Sebastian, conceals the fact that one of 
the results of that investigation, was this formal action of 
the General Assembly of 1807-8. 

In his Centennial Address Colonel Brown did not hesi- 



374 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

tate to stigmatize as " malevolent slander" the imputa- 
tions upon Innes published by Humphrey Marshall and 
thus indorsed by the people of the county in which they 
lived and- by both branches of the legislature. In that 
address it is boldly asserted, that " the litigation between 
Innes and Marshall, in 1806, developed the evidence that 
gave his merited vindication ;" and that " by this prose- 
cution for libel, his pure and unfaltering patriotism was 
vindicated in the eyes of even his persecutors.''' The same 
address states, that "the suit against Marshall was con- 
tinued several times and finally dismissed upon a written 
agreement that all personal differences should be buried 
in oblivion, and that neither should write or publish any 
thing of or concerning the other disrespectful in terms or 
inference, or touching upon any subject of controversy 
that had existed. It was an ill-kept agreement." The 
author of that address, referring to a number of public 
men who were not accused of complicity in the Spanish 
intrigues, states, in the " Political Beginnings," that 
" the}^ gave their testimony in the suits for libel which 
Hary Innes brought against the historian Marshall, as 
author, and Street, the newspaper proprietor, as publisher, 
and their statements under oath are worthy of credence, and 
should settle the dispute forever" [page 164.] In the same 
remarkable work, it is asserted, that the results of the in- 
vestigation in the case of Sebastian, and of the suits 
against Street and Marshall, " vindicated Innes, who was 
chiefly attacked. Street was mulcted in damages that 
ruined him. Marshall agreed to refrain in future from 
assaults on Innes if the suit was dropped, and it was 
therefore discontinued," [page 216,] and that "the records 
of those controversies show that no man who was present at 
any of these conventions knew, or believed, or, suspected, 
that Brown or Innes had. ever entertained a thought other 
than that of entering the Union as a sovereign state, or a 
plan consistent with that thought." And this last state- 
ment was made directly in the face of the depositions of 
Judge John Allen, of Bourbon, of Colonel Joseph Crock- 
ett, and of French, all of which Colonel Brown had read; 



\ 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 375 

of the letter of Colonel Marshall, which he had also read ; 
and of the letters of Muter, which were published in the 
paper with which he was familiar ! 

But the attention of the reader is now directed to the 
evident purpose of Colonel Brown to create the impression 
that Street, '' as publisher " and Humphrey Marshall, " «s 
author,'' were sued for libel contained in the same publica- 
tion or publications ; that Street, " as publisher" was 
mulcted in damages that ruined him on account of libel in 
an article which Marshall had written ; while Marshall, 
" as author," sneaked out of the trouble in which he had 
involved Street, by promising " never to do so any more." 
No other interpretation can be placed on Colonel Brown's 
statements on pages 164 and 216 of his book. Now, the 
fact as it existed, as it was proved, and as Colonel Brown 
knew it to be, is this : That the articles, upon wliich Street 
was sued and mulcted, were published in 1806; that Street 
himself deposed, in the case of Innes v. 31a.rshall, " that 
the matter upon which the suit at Jessamine (that against 
Street) was predicated, was this deponent's own composition ;" 
that Street testified that he " was irresistibly led to the 
conclusions in those publications by a serious, candid and 
liberal examination of the testimony delivered by Judge 
Innes before the committee in the case of Sebastian ; " 
that Street further testified that the charge published in 
the Palladiam that Humphrey Marshall had furnished the 
information upon which the articles in reference to the 
" Spanish conspiracy were founded " " was untrue ;" and 
" that he did not receive the matter relative to the Spanish 
conspiracy from the defendant." The article, on the 
other hand, upon which Marshall was sued, was published 
months later, in answer to abusive assaults made upon 
Marshall himself, and no claim was ever made upon Street 
on account thereof. The fact remains, that no verdict 
was ever obtained against any one for libel contained in 
any article written by Marshall, or which was based upon 
information he had furnished. 

The reader has not failed to observe, that in the extracts 
published from the address and from the " Beginnings " 



376 The Sjxiinsh Conspiracy. 

there is no intimation that the suit against Marshall ever 
went to trial. The address and the book may be searched 
from their beginning to their closing sentences without 
the detection of a hint that the case ever went to a jury. 
The author of those unique papers would have been seri- 
ously inconsistent with himself, and would have been as 
seriously embarrassed in his purpose, had he failed to con- 
ceal the fact of the trial and of its results from his readers. 
Ko other inference can be drawn from his language than 
that the evidence taken by deposition was so absolutely 
conclusive of the innocence of Innes ; that the charges 
made by Marshall on account of which the suit had been 
brought were not only so utterly unsupported by the testi- 
mony, but were shown to be so wholly unfounded, that 
Innes was completely vindicated in the eyes of Marshall 
himself; and that, without a trial, and at Marshall's re- 
quest, in order to avoid a result similar to that which had 
ruined Street, the suit was withdrawn upon Marshall's 
promise to desist in the future. That this impression 
would be created by Colonel Brown's language, and that 
he intended to produce it, are alike unquestionable. When 
Colonel Brown wrote those papers he was in possession of 
the records of that suit and was fully acquainted with all 
the facts. The suit was brought because of a communica- 
tion published by Marshall in the Western World, on the 
16th of July, 1807, in reply, as already stated, to violent 
and abusive assaults made upon him in the Palladium by 
the friends of Innes. In this communication he referred 
to Innes as a "Judge, weak, partial, and an enemy to the 
Government f^ as " 2^, faithless -public servant and an oppressor 
of private rights f as " a judge who still holds his office to 
the public degradation and disgrace of our country ; a judge 
whom I rank with an Arnold, a Blount and a Sebastian." 

Innes brought suit upon those words, but allowed term 
after term to pass without Uling his declaration, until a 
rule was issued against him to file, and then the case was 
dismissed on account of his failure. This was in 1808. At 
the March term of 1809 it was reinstated, the declaration 
was filed and the appearance of the defendant was entered. 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 377 

From the first Marshall avowed that he had written the 
words in question, affirmed their truth and justified every 
word. After various special pleas, demurrers, amend- 
ments, answers, etc., Marshall plead to the general issue, 
which Innes joined, at the July term of 1810. At the 
October term of the same year the case was, by consent, 
transferred from the Franklin to the Mercer Circuit 
Court, where it came on for final trial on the 8th of June, 
1814. 

Marshall was without political influence ; Innes was an 
influential member of the dominant party. Marshall had 
many enemies made by his bold championship of national 
principles and his fierce denunciation of what he held to 
be criminal practices ; Innes was kindly and conciliatory, 
and Church and State and official position were at his 
back. To Marshall, of whose sincerity in preferring the 
charges there could be no doubt, the question was merely 
pecuniary ; and, without being distressed thereby, he could 
have met all the damages claimed. To the unhappy Innes, 
on the contrary, the issue was one of character and repu- 
tation and of personal disgrace. Thus the case was given 
a semi-criminal aspect, in which Innes was the person actu- 
ally on trial, and to him naturally drifted the current of 
sympathy. Upon Marshall rested the entire burden of the 
proof. It devolved on him to verify his charges, not upon 
Innes to disprove them. One of those charges made most 
prominent in the issue by Innes was that, as a judge, he 
had been "weak, partial" and "«w oppressor of private 
rights." If Marshall failed to sustain that charge also, he 
lost his case, no matter how conclusive might be the evi- 
dence on all other points. The trial, in which Innes thus 
had every advantage except that of the facts on his side, 
occupied ten days. It was then announced that the jury 
could not agree. In his History Marshall states that five of 
the jury were for giving Innes damages, if for only one 
cent; while the other seven said no, not a cent shall he 
have. 

E'ow, in the insinuating and expressive language of 
Colonel Brown, it is " passing strange," indeed, if all the 



378 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

evidence so completely and thoroughly vindicated Innes, 
and established that Marshall had for so many years pur- 
sued and hounded him with malignant slander, with totally 
unfounded and unsupported accusations of oflenses so dis- 
graceful to him as a man and judge; that, in the absence 
of any testimony whatever to justify Marshall, and such 
an overwhelming mass of irrefragible proof of the inno- 
cence and purity of Innes, as represented by Colonel 
Brown ; — if that were true, it would be most astounding 
that the jury who heard it all could not be persuaded to 
give the persecuted man even one cent as a salvo. That 
Colonel Brown felt the full significance of this refusal is 
evidenced by the concealment in which he had refuge. 

A year later Marshall met John Jouitt, a friend of 
Innes, and stated that he had no fear that Innes could ever 
obtain a verdict against him ; that the suit had been on for 
eight years, had already cost Innes and himself a great 
deal of money, and seemed to be as far from a conclusion 
as ever. In the meantime they had both grown old ; and 
his own business affairs needed the time occupied in de- 
fending the suit ; under these circumstances he was will- 
ing that it should be marked settled and be dismissed, 
each party paying his own costs. As to the future, an agree- 
ment was reached that neither party would write or speak 
disrespectfully of the other concerning what was past. 
On these terms, leaving all that Marshall had written and 
published unretracted, unqualified, and sustained by legal 
proof which, if not so absolutely conclusive as a mathe- 
matical demonstration might have been, was at least so 
weighty as to satisfy some, and probably a majority 
of the jury which tried the case, that the characteriza- 
tions used by Marshall were as deserved as the evi- 
dence by which he justified them was clear and abundant, — 
the suit was dismissed by the judge, who had brought it 
for the vindication of his patriotism and official integrity ! 
The reader will agree that the " complete vindication " 
which Colonel Brown coolly asserts, that Innes received 
as the results of these legislative and judicial inquiries, as 
seen in the report of the committee which investigated 



The Spanish Conspiracy. 379 

the charge against Sebastian ; in the popuUir verdict ren- 
dered in the election of Humphrey Marshall to the Legis- 
lature from Franklin county, upon the open issue that it 
was his purpose to inaugurate steps for the impeachment 
of Innes; in the resolutions passed by both branches of 
the Assembly looking to that action by Congress; and in 
the refusal of the jury to give him a verdict in the suit he 
brought, was one of which no one would ever boast, and 
which his rash champion might well have declined to 
mention, Nor does a careful sifting of the testimony 
relieve the unfavorable impression made by these opinions 
of committee, people, LegisUxture and jury. And the sug- 
gestion must forcibly, as unavoidably, present itself to ev- 
ery mind, that had the letters of his friend, Wilkinson, 
which have since been obtained from the Spanish archives, 
been then produced in evidence before that committee, be- 
fore that Legislature, before the Congress, or before the 
jury, the results would have been yet more unfortunate 
for the amiable, but unhappy and ill guided judge. 



In 1788 the laws of Virginia denounced as high treason 
the attempt to erect a State within her limits without her 
consent'previously obtained. That state had adopted the 
Constitution and had become a part of the new Union. 
John Brown was one of her Congressmen. As her Attor- 
ney it was the duty of Innes to prosecute infractions of 
her laws; as one of her Judges it was that of Wallace to 
enforce the penalty. The degree of turpitude involved in 
the schemes herein disclosed may safely be left to casuists to 
determine. What the conspirators themselves thought of 
those schemes is exhibited by their attempts at conceal- 
ment. What their latest champion thought of them is 
shown by his painful attempts to repel the charges and to 
suppress the evidence that manifests their justice. Before 
the November convention John Brown had been in- 
formed by Madison of the declaration of Congress that the 
navigation of the Mississippi was an " essential right of the 
United States." 

The reader has seen how the "Political Beginnings" 



380 The Spanish Conspiracy. 

plays at shuttlecock and battledore with Jolin Brown ; — 
how on one page it represents hirn as knowing nothing of 
the Jay project until March, 1787, and nothing of the 
action of Virginia until the following May; and how on 
another page it represents him as " procuring " that action 
in the preceding November. He has observed how the 
statement in that book, that the object of John Brown's 
resolution in the November convention was to secure an 
immediate application to Congress for admission to the 
Union, is flatly contradicted by John Brown's own state- 
ment in Littell ; — which not only relegates that applica- 
tion to some indelinite time in the future, but confesses 
that an inducement to adopt the resolution Avas the pros- 
pect of obtaining from Spain the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi, which the author of that resolution knew could 
only be had by separating from the United States. That 
condition, which was concealed from the readers of Littell, 
was known to the author of the "Beginnings," who de- 
tected the fraud his ancestor had endeavored to palm upon 
the people. The author of the "Beginnings" also saw, 
as plainly as the reader sees it, that after John Brown had 
received the overture of Gardoqui ; had then sought the 
Spaniard at his own house for further communication on 
that subject ; had thanked his tempter for having so ap- 
j)roached him and promised to " aid " in the plan ; had 
written the Muter and similar letters with the Spaniard's 
'permission ; had come home and consulted with the Span- 
ish-bought Wilkinson and others whom he supposed 
favorable to the scheme ; had cooperated with Wilkinson 
in the November convention ; had there offered a resolu- 
tion designed to separate Kentucky from Virginia, and 
necessarily, under the circumstances then existing, from the 
Union ; and that then, according to his own statement in 
Littell, he had disclosed the overture of Gardoqui as an 
inducement to adopt his own resolution ; — he saw that, 
after all this, his grandsire's poor plea, to avoid the conclu- 
sions which all must reach from his acts, that lie had not 
advocated the acceptance of the overture by the convention, 
was weak, puerile, and contemptible. W he did not, tlie 



The Spanish Conspirax-y. 381 

reader can judge whether it was because of his patriotism, 
or, as stated by Wilkinson, it was due to his timidity. 
Admitting by unmistakable implication that had John 
Brown spoken as represented by Humphrey Marshall', he 
"spoke treasonably;" and feeling that if John Brown 
spoke as he himself stated in Littell that he had spoken, 
it was yet worse for him than as represented by Mar- 
shall ; — the "Beginnings" suppresses the statement made 
by Littell, suppresses also all the evidence which confirms 
that made by Marshall ; — and endeavors to extricate John 
Brown from his difficulty by asserting, that he kept the 
overture of Gardoqui a profound secret from all but Mc- 
Dowell and Muter, by boldly aflirming that John Brown 
deemed it inexpedient to narrate to the convention what 
Gardoqui had said, lest rash men might make trouble by ad- 
vocating what Gardoqui had proposed ; and by laboriously 
arguing that the " quotation," which he knew was a repe- 
tition of what Colonel Marshall had written, was a coinage 
out of the malice of the historian Marshall, The reader has 
seen what were the facts ; knows how that " quotation " 
was confirmed by every witness who wrote or spoke in 
reference thereto, was admitted substantially by the ques- 
tions of Innes, and w^as challenged by no one ; and knows 
also how the assertion in the " Beginnings " is refuted by 
that which John Brown himself authorized Littell to 
make in the " Narrative," These tortuous concealments 
of the evidence, these pitiful efi:brts to evade the facts, 
these statements which are so emphatically contradicted 
by John Brown himself, and these shameless accusa- 
tions of others, render the "Beginnings," instead of the 
" vindication " for which it was designed by its author, 
a sorrowful, a painful and a most sickening confession 
of the author's own conviction of John Brown's guilt, 
and of his detection of John Brown's deceits in his efforts 
to conceal that guilt. It surely is not necessary to recapi- 
tulate. The charitable may find an extenuation of the 
course pursued by the grandson in his morbid desire to 
relieve his ancestor's memory from the cloud that dark- 
ened it, and his perception, after a careful investigation. 



382 The Spanish. Conspiracy. 

that it could be done in no other way. But, alas! what 
must that cause have been for which this was the best that 
can be done ! — how utterly desperate, when a well 
equipped and able advocate, possessing linguistic facility 
and the literary art, a careful and laborious reader and a 
diligent student, after exhausting all the resources from 
which the materials for a defense can be drawn, found 
that this was a necessity ! 

And the reader will admit that, unfortunate as the federal 
judge himself had been in the results of the several in- 
vestigations, referred to in the " Beginnings," his memory 
has sustained yet more serious injury, by the useless and 
wanton resuscitation in that remarkable production of 
these unsavory political reminiscences; — which had been 
w^ell nigh forgotten in the stirring scenes of the recent 
past ; — and which the friends of the descendants of Judge 
Innes, among whom were included the kindred of his ad- 
versary, were most anxious should be forever buried. 
There is no need to dwell longer upon the infelicit}^ which 
has attended this latest effort at a much needed, but im- 
possible, " vindication." The misrepresentation that Innes 
had moved, prepared, reported, and advocated the address 
to the Virginia Assembly ; the false pretense that Owen 
had been murdered within Spanish territory, and that the 
American courts had no jurisdiction over the crime of his 
murderers ; the suppression of the evidence of Allen and 
French ; the concealment of the action of both branches 
of the Legislature, and of the fact and result of the trial 
of the libel suit ; — all unite in the absolute demonstration 
that, in Colonel Brown's own opinion, after the most la- 
borious and careful examination, neither could the inno- 
cence of Innes be maintained, nor the candor and integ- 
rity of the historian be impeached, save by this systematic 
suppression of testimony, by this concealment of truth, 
by this garbling and misstatement of records, and by this 
substitution of invention for fact. 

Were the writer disposed to enter upon a defense of the 
historian, the manifest confession implied in the course 
pursued by an able, well informed, and deliberate invest!- 



The. Spanish Coiispiracy. 383 

gator, renders it superfluous. It is admitted that the last 
of the old Federalists in Kentucky, the relentless foe of 
all conspiracies against the peace, the independence or 
the union of our country, was as human as he was mortal. 
But, if it he conceded, that, with splendid talents, a grand 
presence, stately manners, and an utter fearlessness, he 
was as irreligious, as profane, as violent, and as malevo- 
lent as Colonel Brown would have him appear to have 
heen, nevertheless it can be confidently asserted, that 
neither treachery nor the habit of falsifying was num- 
bered in the catalogue of his vices.* 

*An interesting sketch of Humphrey Marshall lias been prepared by 
A. C. Quisenbury, and will soon be published from the press of John 
P. Morton & Co. 



^PF^ENDIX. 



A. 

LETTER OP THOMAS GREEN TO THE GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA. 

Louisville, Falls of Ohio, Dec. 22, 1786. 

Honored and Respected Sir : — Since I had the pleasure of writing my 
last, many circumstances of alarming nature have turned up to view. The 
commercial treaty with Spain is considered to be cruel, oppressive, .and 
unjust. The prohibition of the navigation of the Mississippi, has aston- 
ished the whole western country. To sell us and make us vassals of the 
merciless Sjjaniards, is a grievance not to be borne. Should we tamely 
submit to such manacles, we should be unworthy the name of Ameri- 
cans, and a scandal to the annals of its history. It is very surprising to 
every rational person that the legislature of the United States, which 
has been so applauded for its assertion and defense of their rights and 
privileges, should so soon endeavor to subjugate the greatest part of 
their dominion even to worse slavery than ever Great Britain presumed to 
subjugate any part of hers. Ireland is a free country to what this will 
be when its navigation is entirely shut. We may as well be sold for 
bondsmen as to have the Spaniards share all the benefits of our toils. 
They" will receive all the fruits, produce of this large, rich, and fertile 
country, at their own prices, (which you may be assured will be very 
low) and, therefore, will be able to supply their own markets, and all the 
markets of Europe, on much lower terms than what the Americans pos- 
sibly can. What then, are the advantages that the inhabitants of the 
Atlantic shores are to receive ? This is summed up in a very few 
words : their trade and navigation ruined, and their brethren laboring 
to enrich a luxurious, merciless, and arbitrary nation. Too much of our 
property have they already seized, condemned, and confiscated, testi- 
monies of which I send you, accompanying this. 

Our situation can not possibly be worse ; therefore, every exertion to 
retrieve our circumstances must be manly, eligible, and just. The 
minds of the people here are very much exasperated against both the 
Spaniards and Congress. But they are happy to hear that the state of 
Georgia has protested against such vile proceedings: therefore they 
have some hopes, look up to that state, craving to be protected in our 
just rights and privileges. 

" Matters here seem to wear a threatening aspect. The troops sta- 
tioned at Post Vincennes by orders of General George Eogers Clark 

(385) 

25 



386 Appendix. 

have seized upon what Spanish property there was at that place, also at 
the Illinois, in retaliation for their many offenses. General Clark, who 
has fought so gloriously for his country, and whose name strikes all the 
western savages with terror, together with many other gentlemen of 
merit, engages to raise troops sufficient, and go with me to the Natchez 
to take possession, and settle the lands agreeable to the lines of that 
state, at their own risk and expense ; provided you in your infinite good- 
ness, will countenance them and give us the land to settle it agreeable 
to the laws of your state. Hundreds are now waiting to join us with 
their families, seeking asylum for liberty and religion. Not hearing 
that the lines are settled between you anil the Spaniards, we therefore 
wish for your directions concerning them, and the advice of your supe- 
rior wisdom. At the same time assuring you that we have contracted 
for a very large quantity of goods, we hope sufficient to supply all the 
Indians living within the limits of Georgia. Trusting that we shall be 
able ,to make them independent of the Spaniards, wean their affections, 
and procure their esteem for us and the United States, as we expect to 
take the goods down with us. We earnestly pray that you would give 
us full liberty to trade with all those tribes, and also to give your agents 
for Indian Affairs all the necessary instructions for the prosperity of our 
scheme. The season for the Indian trade will be so far advanced that I 
wait with very great impatience. 

" General Clark, together with a number of other gentlemen will be 
ready to proceed down the river with me, on the shortest notice ; there- 
fore I hope and earnestly pray that you will dispatch the express back 
with all possible speed with your answer, and all the encouragement due 
to so great an undertaking. As to the further particulars, I refer you to 
the bearer, Mr. William Wells, a gentleman of merit, who will be able 
to inform you more minutely than I possibly can of the sentiments of 
the people of this western country. 

Sir, I have the honor to be your honor's etc., 

Thomas Grken. 
[Secret Jounmls of Congress.] 



Appendix. 887 



CIRCULAR, PROBABLY WRITTEN BY THOMAS GREEN. 

During tlie winter of 1786-7, copies of the following production 
were circulated with an air of secrecy, among some of the Ameri- 
can settlements on the western side of the Alleghany mountains; 
particularly in Kentucky and Tennessee. 

" A COPY OF A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN AT THE FALLS OF 
OHIO, TO HIS FRIEND IN NEM' ENGLAND, DATED DECEMBER 4, 
1786." 

" Dear Sir: — Politics, which a few months ago were scarcely thought 
of, are now sounded aloud in this part of the world, and discussed hy 
almost every person. The late commercial treaty with Spain, in shut- 
ting up, as it is said, the navigation of the Mississippi for the term of 
twenty-five years, has given this western country a universal shock, 
and struck its inhabitants with an amazement. Our foundation is 
affected. It is therefore necessary that every individual exert himself 
to apply a remedy. To sell us, and make us vassals to the merciless 
Spaniards, is a grievance not to be borne. 

The parliamentary acts which occasioned our revolt from Great 
Britain were not so barefaced and intolerable. To give us the liberty 
of transporting our ett'ects down the river to New Orleans, and then be 
subject to the Spanish laws and impositions, is an insult upon our un- 
derstanding. We know by woeful experience, that it is in their power, 
when once there, to take our produce at any price they please. Large 
quantities of flour, tobacco, meal, etc., have been taken there the last 
summer, and mostly confiscated. They who had permits from their 
governor, were obliged to sell at a price he was pleased to state, or sub- 
ject themselves to lose the whole. Men of large property are already 
ruined by their policy. What benefit can j'ou on the Atlantic shores 
receive from this act ? The Si3aniards, frofai the amazing resources of 
this river, can supply all their own markets at a much lower price than 
you possibly can. 

Though this country has been settling but about six years and that in 
the midst of an inveterate enemy, and most of the first adventurers 
fallen a prey to the savages, and although the emigration to this country 
is 80 very rapid that the internal market is very great, yet the quantities 
of produce they now have on hand are immense. Flour and pork are 
now selling here at twelve shillings the hundred ; beef in proportion ; 
any quantities of Indian corn can be had at nine pence per bushel. 



388 Appendix. 

Three times the quantity of tobacco and corn can be raised on an acre 
here that can be within the settlement on the east side of the moun- 
tains, and with less cultivation. It is therefore rational to suppose that 
in a'very few years the vast bodies of waters in those rivers will labor 
under immense weight of the produce of this rich and fertile country, 
and the Spanish ships be unable to convey it to market. 

" Do you think to prevent the emigration from a barren country, 
loaded wdth taxes, and impoverished with debts, to the most Inxurious 
and fertile soil in the world ? Vain is the thought, and presumptuous the 
supposition. You may as well endeavor to prevent the fishes from 
gathering on a bank in the sea, wliich affords them plenty of nourish- 
ment. Shall the best and largest part of the United States be unculti- 
vated—a nest for savages and beasts of prey ? Certainly not. Provi- 
dence has designed it for nobler purposes. This is convincing to every 
one who beholds the many advantages and pleasing prospects of this 
country. Here is a soil, richer to appearance than can possibly be made 
by art. Large plains and meadows without the labor of hands, suffi- 
cient to support millions of cattle, summer and winter ; cane, which is 
also a fine nourishment for them, without bounds. The spontaneous 
production of this country surpasses your imagination. Consequently, 
I see nothing to prevent our herds being as numerous here in time as 
they are in the kingdom of Mexico. Our lands to the northward of the 
Ohio, for the produce of wheat, etc., will, I think, vie with the island of 
^Sicily. Shall all this country now be cultivated for the use of the Span- 
iards ? Shall we be their bondmen, as the children of Israel were to the 
Egyptians? Shall one part of the United States be slaves, while the 
other is free? Human nature shudders at the thought, and free men 
will despise those who could be so mean as to even contemplate on so 
vile a subject. 

" Our situation is as bad as it possibly cau be ; therefore every exer- 
tion to retrieve our circumstances must be manly, eligible, and just. 
We can raise twenty thousand troops on this side the Allegheny and 
Appalachian mountains: and the annual increase of them by emigra- 
tion, from other parts is from two to four thousand. 

" We have taken all the goods belonging to the Spanish merchants of 
Post Vincennes and the Illinois, and are determined they shall not trade 
up the river, provided they will not let us trade down it. Preparations 
are now making here {if necessary) to drive the Spaniards from their settlement, 
at the mouth of the Mississippi. In case we are not countenanced and succored 
by the United States {if we need it) our allegiance will be throvm off, and some 
other power applied to. Great Britain stands ready, with open arms, to receive 
and support us. They have already offered to open their resources for our sup- 
plies. When once re-united to them, " farewell, a long farewell to all your 
boasted greatness. The province of Canada, and the inhabitants of 
these waters of themselves, in time, will be able to conquer you. You 
are as ignorant of this country as Great Britain was of America. These 
hints, if rightly improved, may be of some service ; if not, blame your- 
selves for the neglect," 



Appendix. 389 



THE MEMORIAL OF DELEGATES AND REVOLUTIONARY OFFICERS TO 
THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY, IN 1786. 

The following is a copy of the original remonstrauce of the Dele- 
gates to the Assembly from Kentucky and Western Virginia, and of 
a number of officers in the Revolution, for themselves and their 
soldiers, against the proposition to forbear the use of the Mississippi 
below our boundaries, or, as it was represented to them, to cede it to 
Spain, for a terra of years. The original paper was found in the 
Virginia Archives by Colonel Raleigh Colston. The co])y and the 
Jac similes of the signatures were made for the writer by Dr. R. A. 
Brock, the accomplished Secretary of the Virginia Historical So- 
ciety. Many of them are those of prominent men, whose descend- 
ants have since occupied and now occupy the highest places in the 
South and South-west: 

To the Honble the Genl Assembly of Virginia : 

The Memorial of the Delegates representing in General Assembly the 
Counties of this Commonwealth upon the Western Waters, and of sun- 
dry officers of the late army for themselves & soldiers owners of lands 
on the said Waters Humbly Sheweth— that they are greatly alarmed at 
a report which prevails that a project is on foot, which has in contem- 
plation the surrender of the navigation of the Mississippi for 25 or 30 
years to the Crown of Spain in consideration of some advantages either 
real or supposed to some part of the Confederacy the confidence they 
have in the justice & wisdom of Congress we'd induce them to hope that 
such a project could never receive their approbation or even their 
countenance so far as to merit their consideration ; but as they owe it 
to themselves and their Constituents to be vigilant over their interests 
and guard them, especially in a point of such importance to their very 
existence, they consider it their duty to express their uneasiness at this 
report, and to make known to the Legislature their apprehensions of 
the evils which much necessarily result from so unconstitutional and 
dangerous a measure, should it take effect, that they may in their wis- 
dom take such steps as shall be best calculated to prevent it, and obtain 
at the same time the important object they had in view, the free navi- 
gation of the River. 

Your Memorialists beg leave to observe that they are thrown into the 
utmost consternation & distress by this report. Inhabiting the Counties 
which border on the Western Waters, their prosperity & welfare and 
that of their Constituents must principally depend on the navigation of 
this River. Nature hath thrown so many ditficulties in the way that it 
will be in a manner impossible for their product to find a Market thro' 



390 , Appendix. 

any other Channel. This project therefore presents to them the melan- 
choly prospect of ruiu to themselves and their families. Born and edu- 
cated under our common gov't and attached to it by the strongest Ties 
of Interest & affection, having equally participated in the hardships & 
dangers of the Revolution and being equally entitled to its benefits, 
they cannot but receive with horror the Idea of their being thus sacri- 
ficed, and their interests sold by those whom they have considered as 
their brethren, friends & fellow-citizens. They have heretofore been 
surprised to hear that even Hpain should be opposed to their use of this 
River, and have hoped that the wise & benevolent Councils of that 
Court would perceive its injustice and impolicy, and give over the oppo- 
sition. With patience and submission they have waited the success of 
tliose measures which Congress might take to obtain this important end, 
in full confidence that under a wise arrangement an amicable accomoda- 
tion might soon be made to that effect. But how great must their con- 
cern & astonishment be, if the Citizens of the Western Country find 
that they are to be deprived of those benefits, not by the mistaken 
policy of Spain, but by the Government to which they belong, and to 
whose protection and support, by the common principles of the federal 
compact, they are entitled. 

Your Memorialists are unacquainted with the merits of the commer- 
cial part of this project and therefore cannot determine how far it might 
be beneficial upon those principles alone ; but they do not consider that, 
as a circumstance that should be taken into view in contemplation of 
the surrender proposed ; for no considerations of advantage, however 
great they might be, could justify the U. S. for the violation of the fed- 
eral compact, which this unquestionedly would be. 

The Citizens of these Counties have "the same right to the navigation 
of this river which they have to that of the James or Patowmick ; they 
derive it from nature, from the principles of the revolution, and from 
the treaty with Great Britain ; the same high sources from whence they 
have those rights of government and religion they now enjoy for the 
protection and security of which the Confederacy was formed, and with 
the same propriety might Congress Barter away their right to the tryal 
by jury or alien a County or a State for advantages in trade as occlude 
the Mississippi. Treaties of commerce have heretofore been formed 
even between tlie most despotic powers for reciprocal advantages in the 
commercial intercourse between their respective subjects & Dominions, 
but never have they before heard of a project being proposed, much 
less a treaty formed which shut the Doors of Commerce to one_ part of 
a community and deprived it of its natural rights for the benefit of the 
other; how subversive & abhorrent therefore must such a project be to 
the mild and free spirit of our federal constitution ; formed on equal 
principles for common good. The confidence your memorialists have in 
the justice and magnanimity of Congress inclines them to hope that the 
report rt_'S])cctiiiu- tills [n-oji'ct is withiuit foundation, but as they do in 
their Conscii'-irrs hrlifN'-' that if it shall b.' adopted it will produce the 
most ruinous and destiuctive coiiscciuciices, not only to them and their 
constituents, but to the general interest of the federal government, they 
have thought it their duty to make known to the legislature their Sen- 
timents on the subject. Tiie decision of the State upon the present 
occasion upon this point, even if the report should be groundless, may 
be of service in the negotiation, and contribute to bring it to a fortunate 
close. 

That the General A,ssembly may take those measures which shall be 



Appemdix. 



391 



the best calculated to obtain this important end, and preserve at the 
same time the harmony & general interests of the Confederacy is the 
sincere desire of vour Memorialists. 



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INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Allen, Judge John, deposition of 184 to 186 

testimony of, in reference to conduct of Innes in the July Con- 
vention 184 

proves the movement in the July Convention to separate from 

the Union , 184 

corroborated by James French 184 

candidate for November Convention, 1788 211 

elected to 215 

member of Committee on Address to the Assembly 221 

deposition of, in regard to conduct of Brown, Innes, Wilkinson, 

and Sebastian in November Convention 255, 256 

notice of : 256 

Allen, Colonel John, deposition of 3G1 to 367 

letter of 366 

Barbee, Joshua, secured by Innes to carry Wilkinson's dispatch to 

Miro " 135 

Bibb, Judge George M., deposition of 361 to 368 

Breckenridge, Gen. Robert 143 

Breckenridge, Gen. James 143 

Bouligny, D., affidavit of 334 

Bouquet's expedition 34 

Brooks, Dr. Ebenezer, publications in the Gazette 186, 187 

member of July Convention 202 

defeated for November Convention 215 

letter to Col. Campbell 215, 217 

Brown, James, denies the letter of John Crown to Muter and tra- 
duces James M. Marshall for mentioning it 176 

Brown, John, senator from Kentucky District 62 

leave of absence to 62 

signer of letter which induces censure of Clai-k 77 

falsely represents that Clark was censured for organizing and 
conducting an expedition against the Indians, and fraudulently 
conceals the fact that he signed the letter which occasioned that 

censure 92 to 100 

does not attend the Senate in 1786 102 

and Innes, in their manifesto of March 29, 1787, conceal from the 
people the information they had from John Marshall's letter 
that Virginia had already acted in regard to the "Jay project." 110-112 

opposed to the adoption of the Constitution 146 to 148 

goes to Congress 149 

(393) 



394 > Index. 

Brown, John — Conf-hmM. 

entrusted with tlie application of Kentucky. 150 

misrepresents the action and motives of Congress 154 

discloses his purpose to urge a separation from the Union to Oliver 

Pollock 155 

communicates to Wilkinson the overture of Gardoqui 15(5 

promises Gardoqui to aid in separating Kentucky from the 

Union 159 to 161 

misrepresents the motives of Congress to Judge McDowell 167 

" sliding letter " of, to McDowell 168 

conceals from McDowell the real conditions annexed by Spain. . . 168 
discloses the overture and reveals himself in the letter to Muter. 1 6'J-l 72 
conceals from Muter the real reason for the action of Congress, 

and substitutes reasons of his own manufacture 169 

urges Kentucky to assume sovereignty in order to accept Gardo- 

qui's overture 1 70 

letter of, to Muter 171 to 172 

letter of, to Muter, excluded from Littell's Narrative .177 to 179 

falsely pretends that the letter to Muter gives the same account 

of Gardoqui's overture as the " sliding letter " to McDowell 1 78 

resolution of thanks to 1 99 

on his return to Kentucky reveals the overture of Gardoqui to 

Greenup and Wilkinson 217 

elected to November Convention . . : 220 

resolution of 222 

speech of, at the November Convention 224 

plea of, for unanimity 225 

purpose of resolution of 228 

object of same as explained by John Brown in Littell's Narra- 
tive 229 to 232 

asserts that he disclosed overture of Gardoqui to November Con- 
vention 2r,2 to 235 

contradicted by Col. Marshall, Sebastian, Crockett and Muter.. 240-250 
falsely represents that Col. Marshall retracted the charges made in 

his letter of Feb'y 12th, 1789 272 

claim of, that Col. Marshall was influenced by jealousy exposed. 273 
remains silent under all the charges, avoiding the courts and makes 

no sign 280 to 284 

pretended memoranda of his evidence in the investigation of 

Sebastian 281 

testimony really given by, in that case 282 

appointed commissioner to organize militia 289 

solicits Gardoqui for a large grant of land 321 

present when pension money is delivered to Wilkinson by Joseph 

Collins 329 

becomes detached from the S])auish interests, probably 337 

Brown, Col. J. M., "The Political Beginnings," published after 

death of 5 



Index. -^05 

Brown, Col. J. )A.—Cont'mv.e.d. 

reopens the discussion of •' The Spanish Conspiracy." • • 6 

account of the interviews between Gardoqui and Madison dis- 
proved by the letters of Madison to which he referred 80 

detects the fraud of Innes in publishing the false copy of his let- 
to Randolph and connives at it ^^ 

misrepresentations of the censure of Clark, his eftbrt to fix upon 
Col. Marshall the responsibility for that censure, etc 95 to 101 

pretense of, that Gen. Logan was included in the censure of 
Clark 95 to 101 

inaccuracies of, in regard to the time the news of the Jay project 
reached Kentucky, and as to the time when the action of Vir- 
ginia was made known in the west H- to 120 

substitutes the resolutions passed by the Assembly in 1787, for 
those of 1786 • • • ^^^ 

after claiming that John Brown knew nothing of the Jay project 
until March, 1787, and nothing of the action of Virginia until 
May, asserts that the same John Brown procured that action in 
November, 1886 1^'^ <^o J^^ 

error of, as to the time when Wilkinson's corruption commenced..l32-3 

opinion of, the sufficiency of the reasons for referring the appli- 
cation of Kentucky to the new government 1-^4 

self contradictions of ; ^''1 *<^ ^^^^ 

suggestions of, in reference to Madison refuted by Madison's 



letters. 



162 



suppresses the circumstances under which Brown's letter to INIiro 

was published in 1790 • ^'^' 

asserts that Muter and Thos. Marshall were members of tlie July 

Convention 1^^ 

his statements refuted by Muter, Greenup, Marshall, and others.l 92-200 

suppresses Greenup's evidence ^^^ 

contradicted by Wilkinson ^9*^ 

asserts that the " sliding letter " and that to Muter were identical.. 200 

statement refuted by the letters 200 

statement of, refuted by Muter 201 

excludes Muter's address from his "Political Beginnings " 212 

insinuates that the opposition of Muter and Marshall to Brown 

and Wilkinson was influenced by Connolly 213 

suppresses the evidence which refutes his statements 214 

statements of, disproved by Gov. Greenup an<l Wilkinson 217-218 

refuted by Sebastian, Crockett and Muter 24:Uo 246 

suppresses what Col. Marshall wrote of John Brown's speech. . . . 254 
suppresses testimony of Sebastian, Judge Allen, Crockett, French 

and letters of Muter 255 to 260 

again upset by Muter's letter 257 

admits, if John Brown spoke as it was proved by Col. ^Marshall, 
Muter, Sebastian and Crockett he did speak, he spoke treason- 
ably 257 



396 - Index. 

Brown, Col. J. 1^1.— Continued. 

tries to make it appear tliat II. lyiarshall's quotation was a malic- 
ious fabrication 259 

denies that John Brown spoke at all coneerning the Gardoqui 
overture 259 

contradicted by John Brown him.self 250 to 261 

conceals the fact that Wilkin.son's memorial was read in the Nov. 
Convention 261 

incorrectly represents that Wilkinson was thanked for the ad- 
dress to Congress and not for the memorial to Mii-o 262 to 264 

suppresses the fact that the address to the Assembly was drawn, 
reported and advocated by Edwards 264 to 271 

makes a false claim that the addr(\ss to the Assembly was moved, 
drawn, reported and advocated by Innes 267 to 271 

assails H. iMarshall because he did not give to Innes the credit 
due to Edwards 267 to 271 

overwhelmed by the official report 267 to 271 

suppresses the explanation given in Littell of the " principle and 
plan " of John Brown in Nov. Convention 267 

assertion of, that Col. Marshall retraetetl his charges, refuted by 
the letter which he cited 275 to 279 

his claim that John Brown repelled on oath the charges against 
him, refuted by John Brown's own testimony 281 to 283 

suppresses the statements of Col. Marshall, of Wilkinson, of Hum- 
rey Marshall and of Butler, that Connolly's visit to the first two 
named was made in November o03 to 308 

falsely represents Connolly's visit to Marshall to have been made 
in October, 1788 305 

falsely cites the communication of A. K. Marshall as his authority 
for that misrepresentation 305 

his false statement refuted by the communication itself 305 to 307 

motive of, for those misstatements 308 to 317 

fictitious scene fabricated by ;!09 to 310 

attributes the authorship of the treasonable paper to Col. iMar- 
shall 314 to 317 

conceals the names of John Brown's associate's in tlie petition for 
land 321 

misrepresents the deposition of Judge Thruston 330 to 335 

contradicted by Marshall, Thruston, Langlois, Power and Bou- 
ligny 330 to 335 

contradicted by Sebastian's letter in (iayarre 336 

conceals the fact and result of the trial of tlie liln'l (suit of Innes 

V. Marshall 374 to 376 

Bullock, Capt. Rice, votes to ratify the Constitution 143 

Butler, the historian, opinion of Brown's letter to Muter 415 

Carondelet, Baron de, succeeds Miro. 340 

renews Miro's scheme 342 

sends Power to Kentucky 343 



Index. 397 

Carondelet, Baron de — Continued. 

overture of, in 17!)5 ."544 to o49 

sends money to Wilkinson 349 

renews his scheme in 1797 351 

offers $100,000 to bribe Sebastian, Nicholas, Innes, Murray and 
others 351 

Clark, Daniel, Senior, advances Wilkinson §3,000 125 

partnership of, with Wilkinson 324 

Clark, Daniel, Jr., charges of, against Wilkinson 124 to 127 

discredited by Wilkinson 126 

deposition of, submitted to Congress 323 to 335 

swears to having seen a list of persons prepared by Wilkinson for 

pensioners in 1789 328 

statement by, of Wilkinson's accounts 324 to 327 

Clark, General George R., aided from New Orleans 12 

establishes Fort Jefferson on the Mississippi 16 

brief sketch of 38 to 45 

the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes by, pi'omoted and aided 

by Virginia 44 

expedition of, against Wabash Indians 67 to 72 

causes of failure 68 to 70 

conduct of, at Vincennes 70 to 72 

letters reflecting upon 72 

meditates an attack upon Spanish settlements 72 to 85 

Clark, General George R., signs bond to pay expenses of Green's 

messenger to Governor of Georgia 74 

censured 78 to 79 

letters and information which occasioned the censure of 76 to 79 

measures taken to dispossess Clark from Vincennes 81 

commissioned a General in the French army 341 

Connolly, Dr. John, patent for the site of Louisville, issued to 36 

issues circular which occasions the murders at Captina and Yel- 
low Creek 38 

visits Louisville in October, 1788 299 

visits Marshall and AVilkinson in November, 1788 300 to 306 

proposes that the British shall aid to drive out the Spanish from 
New Orleans 302 

Congress, instructs American commissioners to be guided by advice 

of French Minister 20 

Congress, Old, want of power of 48 to 53 

embarrassments of 48 to 51 

reasons of, for referring the application of Kentucky to the new 
Government 152 

Constitution, adoption of the 139 to 150 

Convention, first, in 1784 56 

second, in 1785 57 to 58 

third, in 1785 58 to 60 

fourth, in Sept., 1786, no quorum 76 



398 ' Index. 

Convention— Continued. 

quorum attends in January, 1 787 '. 104 

receives news of new act 104 

adjourns peaceably 105 

fifth V Ill 

sixth 118 

recommendatorv resolution in July, 17SS 197-205-206 

of July, 1788. . ." 180 to 206 

of November, 1788 220 to 284 

Crockett, Col. Jos 98-102-115 

letter of to A. K. Marshall 194 

candidate for November Convention, of 1 788 211 

elected to, 205 

leaves his seat to obtain instructions from Fayette 235 

notice of 244 

opinions entertained by, of Brown's speech at the time 244 

Danville Political Club 145 to 147 

Davidge, Judge Henry, deposition of 359 to 367 

Dorchester's, Lord, dispatch 294 

confers with the Spanish party in Kentucky 294 to 299 

Edwards, Col. John, course of, in July Convention 197 

chairman of Committee on Address to Assembly 221 

reports and reads same 221 to 228 

Fleming, Col. William, first Convention presided over by, and 

sketch of 56 

France, collusion of, in demands of Spain 17 to 30 

endeavors to subject our independence to her protection 18 to 32 

French, James, deposition of 185 to 187 

evidence against 1 nnes 185 

character of 186 

Gayoso, sent to New Madrid to negotiate 343 

Gazette, Lexington, mutilation of the file of 177 

communications in 186 to 187 

Gardoqui, arrives in America 28 

refuses to concede the navigation of the Mississippi 28 

overture of, to John Brown 150 to 160 

dispatch of 160 to 161 

Great Britain, recognizes our independence 26 

retains North Western posts 46 to 49 

policy of, encourages Indian hostilities 46 to 55 

emisaries of, in Kentucky 292 to 310 

Green, Thomas, letter of, to Gov. of Georgia 73 and Appendix 

Green, Thomas, inflammatory circular written by . .75, 76 and Appendix 

Green. Thomas, letter and circular of, copied -and sent to Gov. of 

Virginia 76 

Greenup, Gov., signs letter in regard to Clark 77 

takes Neaves' afhdavit 77 

deposition of 183 



Index. 399 

Greenup, Gov. — Continued. 

statement by, that Wallace was author of the resolution for an il- 
legal separation from Virginia 183 

proves hostility of Muter and Marshall to Wallace's resolution. . . 195 

letter of, in relation to John Brown 217 

deposition 248 

Hamilton, Alexander, letter of, in regard to Wilkinson 290 

Innes, Hary, member of early Conventions. See pages under head 
of Convention. 

district attorney f>0 

complains of Clark in a letter to Gov. Randolph 77 

evades compliance with the directions of the (Governor and Attor- 
ney General 82 to 85 

original letter of, to Gov. Randolph 84 to 85 

the false copy of that letter he published in Littell's " Narra- 
tive " 89 to 90 

proof that he furnished Littell with the false copy 87 

motive of, for mutilating his own letter 85 to 91 

and John Brown misrepresent the cause of the censure of Geo. R. 

Clark 93 

and Brown's false statement that General Ben Logan was cen- 
sured 92 to 100 

confidential conference of, witli \\'ilkinson 134 

John Brown's " sliding letter " shown to. 180 

delight of, at Gardoqui's overture 181 

spreads the information of Gardoqui's overture in the July Con- 
vention 181 

supports resolution for an illegal separation from Virginia in the 

July Convention 183 

evidence of Judge Allen in regard to the conduct of, in July Con- 
vention 185 to 187 

evidence of James French in regard to same 185 

evidence of Wilkinson, same 187 

excludes Wallace's resolution from Littell's •' Narrative ". .187 to 189 

chairman of committee on Address to Congress 221 

opposition of, to Edwards' resolution and address 229 to 232 

appointment of, by Gen. Washington 287 

no charge made against, in Col. Marshall's letter 287 

construction of motive for appointing Innes given by Wilkin- 
son 288 

contrast between conduct of, and that of Col. Marshall 311 

induces Henry Owen to go to New Orleans for Wilkinson's pen- 
sion money 327 

refuses to try murderers of Owen 327 

ceases to work openly to separate Kentucky from the Union, but 
continues friendly to the movement 337 



400 Index. 

Innes, Ilary — Continued. 

and Nicholas give Sebastian a "written opinion " as his creden- 
tials to negotiate with Gayoso 347 

testimony before the Sebastian committee 344 to 370 

reply of, and Nicholas, to treasonable overture of 1797 352 

conceals his knowledge of Sebastian's pension 353 

tries to prevent committee from continuing investigation 359 

statement of, iji relation to his conversation with Sebastian 365 

reasons of, for not communicating Carondelet's proposition to the 

Executive 3B8 

resolutions of the Legislature in regard to 372 

result of suit of, v. Marshall 377 to 378 

Jay, John, mission to Spain 14 to 30 

Spain refuses to recognize 15 to 20 

Virginia delegates propose to rescind instructions to 16 

maintains our right to navigate the Mississippi 14 to 30 

arrives in Paris 22 

refuses absolutely to treat with any power which does not first 

recognize our independence 22 to 30 

determines to violate instructions rather than sacrifice American 

honor or interests 24 

fathoms designs of France and Spain 22 to 30 

reveals them to Oswald 25 

secretary of Foreign Aflairs 27 

new instructions of Congress to ■ 28 

asks Congress to rescind 29 

proposes to forbear the use of Mississippi for a period of years 29 

proposition of, known in Kentucky in the fall of 1786. .73 to 89 & 105 
■"Jay Fi'oject," memorial to the Virginia State Assembly in regard 

to 1 06 and Appendix 

action of Assembly in regard to 106 to 108 

the Pittsburg circular in regard to 109 

manifesto of Brown, Muter, Innes and Sebastian in regard to 109 

resolutions of Virginia in regard to, in 1787 117 

Jouitt, Capt. John 98, 102, 107, 115, 221, 237 

Kanawha, first settlements on 36 

Kentucky, first surveys in 36 to 38 

settlement of, commenced 38 

first act to separate from Virginia CO to 62 

. delay in presenting application of, to Congress 150 

committee reports in favor of admission of 150 

bill for the admission of, postponed 151 

application referred to new Government 152 to 154 

Langlois, F., affidavit of 332 

Littell, Wm., deposition of 354 to 356 

Logan, Gen. Ben., letter of Gov. Henry to 53 

advises Clark should be given command 53 

calls a meeting of militia officers 55 



Index. 401 

Logan, Gen. Ben — Continued. 

presides over military council at Clarksville 67 

expedition of, against Mad river Indians 68 

not responsible for Clark's failure, nor for his conduct at Vin- 

cennes 71 to 72 

opinion of Innes 98 to 99 

Logan, Col. John, expedition against the Cherokees 81 

Gov. Randolph's letter to Innes to institute proceedings against. . 82 

Louisiana, ceded to Spain 9 

possession of, taken by Spain 9 

famine in -. 11 

Magruder, Allen B., statement by, in relation to the Spanish Con- 
spiracy 3 

Madison, James, author of first act of separation 60 

letter of, to Washington 62 

account given by, of the interviews with Gardoqui 80 

places action of Virginia censuring Clark before Congress and the 

Spanish INImister 79 to 80 

suggestion of, as to the law under which Clark might be pun- 
ished 81 

letter of Jefferson, explaining the movement in 1787, as developed 
in the Pittsburg circular and the Brown-Innes-Sebastian mani- 
festo Ill 

testimony as to the methods used to prejudice Kentucky dele- 
gates against the Constitution 142 

letter of, to Jefferson 162 

Marshall, A. K., communication of 305 to 307 

Marshall, James M., about to fight a duel with James Brown. .174 to 176 
obtains from Muter and publishes an extract from Brown's 

letter 176, 319, 320 

Marshall, John, political agent for Kentucky 102 

fails to secure desired modifications in the act of separation 103 

letter of, explaining motives of Assembly in passing new act of 

separation 103 

gives information of the action of the Assembly in regard to the 

" Jay project " 107, 108 

member of House of Delegates in 1786 102 

member of House of Delegates in 1787 117 

Marshall, Humphrey 63, 64, 143, 144 

member of convention of May, 1787 144 

of that of Sept., 1787 144 

reasons of for voting for Federal Constitution 145 

warned of John Brown's opinion that the Constitution ought to 

be rejected 147 

quotes in his history the account given by Col. Marshall of John 

Brown's speech 253 

if any injustice was done, it was not by 253 

26 



402 Index. 

Marshall, Humphrey — Continued. 
inference of, as to the motives of Innes and "Wilkinson for send- 
ing murderers of Owen beyond reach of American courts 328 

is elected to the Legislature 372 

resolution of, defeated 372 

Marshall, Col. Thomas, member of Convention of ITSG 103 

member of House of Delegates in 1787 117 

not a member of July Convention 202 

urges Muter to publish Brown's letter 210 

concerts address with Muter 211 

account by, of Brown's speech in Nov. Convention 224, 225 

seconds Edwards' resolution 227 

writes to Washington an account of Wilkinson's memorial, John 

Brown's letters and speech, and visit of Connolly 240 

correctness of same admitted by Littell's " Narrative," and 

vouched for under oath by Thomas Todd 240, 241 

account by, of John Brown's speech cororliorated by Sebastian.... 243 

same confirmed by Crockett 243 

letter to Washington of Feb'y 12, 1789 250 to 253 

letter to Washington of Sept. 11, 1790 277 

letter to same of Sept. 7, 1792 278 

letter of, claimed to have been a letter of retraction, a reiteration. 278 

receives a call from Connolly after the November Convention 301 

understands Connolly's proposal to imply separation from the 

Union 302 

rejects Connolly's advances with contempt 302 

reference to 317 

- Miro, letter of, to Court of Madrid 128, 129 

sends Wilkinson's letter to Madrid 130 

dispatch of, to Valdes of Nov. 3, 1788 155 

account by, of the reception of his overture by John Brown. 156 to 161 

promises Wilkinson reward 322 

recommends Wilkinson and Sebastian be pensioned 337 

leaves Louisiana 340 

Mississippi, American frontier extended to, in 1777 13 

Morgan, Col. George 12 

Morrison, James, communication in Gazette 18 

McDowell, Col. Sam 57, 58, 178 

deposition of ISO, 181 

makes know the contents of the "sliding letter" to Innes, but to 

no one else during July Convention 181 

deposition of 247 

McKee. Judge Sam., deposition of 361 to 364 

Muter, George, elected judge of the General Court 60 

signs letter to Gov. Randolph concerning Clark 77 

signs circular of March 29, 1787 110 

goes back to legal ground 119 

receives Brown's letter in the fall of 1788 173, 208 



Index. 403 

Muter, George. — Continued. 

letters of 173 to 176 

not a member of July Convention 173, 201, 202 

character of 209 to 211 

exhibits Brown's letter to Col. Marshall 209 

address of 211 

notice of 244 

letter of confirming Col. Marshall 245 

Navarro, advice of, to Court of Madrid 1 24 

reprimanded by Gardoqui 124 

leaves for Spain 130 

last dispatch of 131 

Nolan, Phil 325, 350 

Owen, Henry, murder of 327 

murderers of, sent by Innes to Wilkinson 327 

Political reflections by a gentleman of Kentucky 296 

identity of, with Wilkinson's letters to Miro 298 

Pollock, Oliver, arrives at New Orleans 11 

influence of, at New Orleans 11 

obtains ammunition 11,12 

testimony of in favor of Wilkinson 126 

communicates to Miro, Jolm Brown's confidential declaration of 
his purpose to urge a separation of Kentucky from the Union... 155 

Pontiac, confederation of, dissolved 33 

Portell, Don Thomas 329 

Power, Thomas 329, 343, 349, 350 

communicates proposition of Carondelet to Sebastian in 1797 351 

visits Wilkinson at Detroit 353 

conducted under guard to Fort Massac 353 

Sebastian, Judge, deposition of 243 

corroborates Col. Marshall 243 

solicits compensation in 1790, for his efforts to separate Kentucky 

from the Union 336 

after Innes becomes judge, principal aid of Wilkinson 337 

appointed judge of the Court of Appeals 339 

pensioned by Spain 339 

receives proposition from Power, undertakes to see Innes, Nich- 
olas and Murray, and writes to Wilkinson 343 

meets Gayoso at New Madrid 347 

goes to New Orleans with Gayoso 348 

communicates overture of 1797 to Innes 352 

encourages Power to still hope for success 353 

resigns his judgeship and admits the pension 357 

notice of 358 

report of committee upon 369 

Shelby, Gov., deposition of 249 

Short, Peyton, partnership of, with Wilkinson 326 

Spain, aids in the Revolution 12 to 30 



404 Index. 

Spain— Continued. 

declares war against Great Britain 14 

conquest by, of the Floridas 14 

demands of 1 4 to 32 

concludes treaty of friendship, limits and navigation 349 

St. Clair, Gen., testimony of 286 

letter of, to Isaac Dunn 286 

St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan, captured 16 

Stuart, Dr. David, publislies an account of John Brown's conference 

with Gardoqui in the Alexandria Gazette 238 

letter of 239 

Thomas, Richard, deposition of 134 

Thruston, Col. Chas. Mynn, sketch of 149 

Thruston, Judge Buckner, deposition of 330 to 332 

Todd, Judge Thomas, vouches for the correctness of Col. Marshall's 

letter to Washington concerning Wilkinson's Memorial 241 

pays Littell for writing the " Narrative " 354 

Transylvania Company , 38, 39 

Treaties with Indians 48 to 55 

Treaty violation of, by Great Britain and several of the States. .4(> to 52 

of 1763, between Great Britain and France 10 

secret, of 1762, between France and Sj^ain 10 

of 1763, constitutes the Mississippi western boundary of North 

Carolina 13 

of 1783, with Great Britain 27 

at the German Flats 34 

of Fort Stanwix, 1768 35 

with Spain 350 

Trimble, Judge Robert, deposition of 362 to 364 

Virginia delegates propose to rescind the instructions 16 

instructs her delegates never to agree to Jay's proposition 30 

Assembly passes new act of separation 102 to 105 

Assembly, Kentucky delegates in, of 1786 115 

Convention of, ratifies the Constitution 151 

Walker, Dr. Thos., penetrates to the Dicks' river 33 

Wallace, Caleb, signer of letter to the Governor censuring Clark. . . 77 

elected to Convention of July, 1788 138 

resolution to separate Kentucky from Virginia without a laAV for 

the purpose attributed to , 183 to 185 

letter of Wilkinson relating to action of, in July Convention 189 

ignores his own resolution 189 

convenient memory of 1 89 to 196 

defeated for November Convention 215 

course after the defeat 215 

evades the issue 247 

" did 'nt recollect" 248 

Washington's views of Mississippi question 31, 32 

views of the necessity for a vigorous Constitution 139 to 150 



Index. 405 

Wilkinson, Gen. James — Continued. 
first publication of John Brown's movement made at the request 

of 2:59 

letter of, in regard to Wilkinson 290 

administration of, embarrassed ;540 

sends James Innes to Kentucky 342 

Watauga, settlements on the 13 

Wilkinson, Gen. James 50 (;2 

the debate at Lexington between, and Humphrey Marshall. .(Jo to 05 

secures his election to Congress of 1875 by a trick 05 to m 

jealousy of Clark attributed to .TiT. 72 

signs letter which induces censure of Clark 77 

recommended for Commissioner to treat with Indians 78 

sketch of ]20 to V2?> 

trading expedition of, to New Orleans 123 

obtains exclusive privileges of navigation and trade 125 

concerts memorial with Miro 127 

reads memorial in Danville Convention 128 

committed by his memorial to the separation of Kentucky from 

the Union I2S 

engagement of, with IMiro 128 to 150 

letter of, to Miro, May 13, 1788 129 130 135 

calls at Mt. Vernon I33 

on his return to Kentucky sends immediately for lunes 134 

confides in Innes 134 

elected to July Convention of 1788 338* 

learns from John Brown the, efiectof his memorial upon tie Span- 
ish Court j5g 

letter of, convicting Wallace, Innes and Sebastian 187 

letters of, to Miro, proves hostility of Muter and Marshall to his 

plans before the July Convention 196 

letter of, to Miro, Feby. 12, '89 196 

is forced to dissemble 265 

elected to November Convention 205 

letter to Miro describing John Brown 218 

speech of, in Nov. Convention 223 

refers Nov. Convention to John Brown for information concerning 

the Spanish overtures 224 

reads his memorial in Nov. Convention 226 

explains to Gardoqui the purpose of the Address to Congress 235 

yields, apparently, to instructions obtained by Crockett 235, 236 

object of the resolution of, asking instructions from the people, as 

explained in Littell's " Narrative " 236 

urges the Spaniards never to concede the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi- to the United States 263 

letter of, to Miro, Jany. 26, 1790 288 

appointed Lieut. Colonel 289 

opinions entertained of, by Hamilton and Washington 290 - 



406 Index. 

Wilkinson, Gen. James — Continued. 

intrigues of, with Great Britain 292 to 304 

report of, to Lord Dorchester 294 

the author of the " Political Reflexions " 297 to 299 

invites Connolly to visit him 300 

informs Miro of Connolly's visit 300 

explains the motive of the petition of Brown, Innes, Sebastian, 

Dunn and himself for a land grant 321 

attempts to smuggle murderers of Owen beyond the jurisdiction 

of American Courts 328, 329 

evidence of letters in regard to Innes and Sebastian 337 

desires publicly to avow himself a Spanish subject 338 

informs Power of the new plot .' 344 

gives instructions to Power to be communicated verbally to Gay- 

oso 350 

receives Power coolly 353 

complains that Spain had given up her power over the Western 

people by conceding the navigation of the Mississippi 353 



ERR.ATA. 



Page 48, 15th line, for "conception" read mception. 

Page 58, line 2, read Muter for " Winter." 

Page 106, 5th line from the bottom, " and " should be omitted. 

Page 113, line 26, read " to " before Kentucky. 

Page 116, the quotation beginning in the 3rd line should read thus : 

"Brown, representing Kentucky as a Senator in the Virginia Assembly, 

procured from it the emphatic declaration of 26th [he meant the 29th] 

of November, 1786, already mentioned." 

Page 135, line 17, "dispatches" should read "dispatch." 

Page 193, the word "never" in the 7th line should read "ever." 

Page 217, in 5th line of note, the text should read " Letter to Arthur 

Campbell." 
Page 258, line 16, the text should read, " spoke at all in the Convention." 
Page 267, in the 6th line, for "conceded" read "concealed." 
Page 278, line 16, the text should read "adding paltry equivocation to 

sly treachery." 

Page 297, line 12, read "refers" instead of "refer." 
Page 302, line 16, the text should read "of a desire." 
Page 30-4, last word in 4th line should be " was." 
Page 306, line 1 in note, for " copied " read " made." 
Page 324, line 3, for " were " read ivas. 
Page 351, line 21, for "ports " read "posts." 
Page 378, line 11, for " salvo " read salve. 



